


Manic Panic

by CURUS



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Blood and Gore, Dark!Marco, Jean is traumatized and Marco's mentally unstable aha, Minor Character Death, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Somewhat., Their relationship forms rather slowly., There may be smut there may not be I'm still trying to figure that one out., Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 01:45:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 40,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4810208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CURUS/pseuds/CURUS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started out of nowhere. Nobody saw it coming. We were all just people living their lives like always.</p><p>When did I land in the neighbor’s yard with blood on my hands? I don’t remember.<br/>…No, I remember.<br/>I remember so well.<br/>I just wish I didn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jean - And the city burned to the ground

It started out of nowhere. Nobody saw it coming. We were all just people living their lives like always. Moms picking kids up from school, people working their shifts, everybody just living their lives as innocently as possible. It was a normal day for everyone. Mom had picked my sister Hitch up from soccer; I was in the back seat after a scheduled check up with my dentist. I missed school so I had no reason to complain. We had just picked Hitch up and were heading to pick up dinner. Hitch and I were arguing: She wanted Chinese takeout and I wanted pizza. We argued the entire way home with mom saying that she’ll flip a coin and order delivery for the winning side.

We got home. We flipped our coin. I won. Hitch pouted and mom made the call. We began pulling out our usual Friday night stuff. Since I won the coin toss, Hitch was allowed to pick the movies we watched. I had chips and sodas on the coffee table and Hitch was already sitting on the couch with a blanket over her lap. She was wearing the too-big shirt from her boyfriend Marlow and some boxers she bought at Wal-Mart.

Mom heard someone pound on the door. She made a face and looked through the peep-hole in the door. She said it must be the delivery guy who had a shitty day. Hitch and I couldn’t see her from the living room. Mom was in the foyer. I heard the door open.

I heard the door open…

Did mom even scream? I don’t remember.

Did she tell Hitch and I to run? I don’t remember.

Did she die in the foyer or did she make it to the living room? I don’t remember.

Did Hitch run first or did I? I don’t remember.

When did I land in the neighbor’s yard with blood on my hands? I don’t remember.

…No, I remember.

I remember so well.

I just wish I didn’t remember.

Mom fell into the living room. She never made a peep, she couldn’t. The only sounds coming out of her was the ugly gurgling and choking as blood poured out of her jugular. She twitched, gagged, and choked and blood covered her beautiful antique rug that her mother gave to her. Hitch screamed for mom. I was standing in my place in front of the TV, horrified and sick by the sight of my now dead mother.

Someone came into the living room. They were pale. And mom’s blood dripped from their open mouth. Their eyes were bloodshot and glazed over. They wheezed and said nothing. They lunged for Hitch and I pulled her away. We ran. We ran into the backyard. Hitch barely made it out of the sliding back door before it got her from behind. It tore her open. So wide open… How could human hands tear open a person’s flesh so quickly, expose their spine and ribs and take a chunk of their shoulder out with just one bite?

She was crying. Crying my name. Crying for help as her flesh was ripped apart. She had a bloodied hand reaching out to me. I grabbed it, I held on to her for dear life. She looked so scared. Never before had I seen my bratty little sister look so terrified, so desperate, so…sad. I cried. I cried for everything to please stop. I kept seeing mom’s corpse flashing in front of my eyes. And then I’d see Hitch laying in front of me. She was dead but I just didn’t let go.

I ran because that monster wanted me next. I ran because my mind hallucinated mom’s voice screaming for me to run. I ran because I didn’t want to die.

It grabbed my leg but it never bit. I fell over the fence and landed in the neighbor’s bushes. I could hear screaming as I lay in those bushes. I could hear people dying. I could hear the beast scratching on the fence, trying to jump over to me.

My neighborhood was in a panic. My town was dying. Trost was bleeding out and all I could do was run.

My chest ached, my lungs burned, and my eyes stung from my tears. My legs went numb and so did my mind. Mom was still crying out to me, telling me to keep running, to not stop, and to not look back. I saw the faces of my neighbors, my friends, my teachers, all of them either running, dying, or eating each other’s faces off. I saw the gentle old woman three houses down tearing her grandson’s throat open with her teeth. I saw a cop shooting at rabid people, hitting their arms, their legs, anywhere just to keep from actually _killing_ them, before a legless little girl who bit down on his leg and ripped a chunk of flesh from him took him down.

I ran. I ran until everything hurt. I avoided everyone. I didn’t want to do what the middle aged man did: Throw his wife into the waiting mouths of the monsters just to get a head start. I didn’t want to be pushed and I didn’t want to push anyone else. I wouldn’t let there be blood on my hands. Trost’s lights eventually faded behind me and I never looked back to see my former home. Never stopped to say goodbye. Never thought that everything was different now. There was no home anymore.

It was so dark when I finally collapsed in Trost’s deep woods. The earth was so cold and my body hurt so much. I sobbed and screamed. Dirt got in my mouth but I didn’t feel or taste it. I just cried until I went quiet. Until I went silent and numbly stared off into the woods, laying on my stomach and waiting to wake up tomorrow in bed.

…I wonder if mom will flip a coin to decide who picks what she’ll make for breakfast tomorrow.


	2. Jean - And blood runs through the streets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The land has completely lost all meaning to me. I don’t really care where I am anymore. Nothing is safe, no sign of life anywhere, and the life I had before is just a hazy dream that sometimes I wonder if it was even real at one point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Courtesy trigger warnings:** A little bit of graphic gore, in case it bothers anyone.

On April 30th, a virus spread throughout the country, possibly even the world. In just one night, the city of Trost was in a frenzy and nearly all of its civilians were either eaten or infected. In just 24 hours, any safe areas were overrun by the infected and survival became number one priority.

If you wanted to live, you had to fight.

The sun is hanging high above my head. It burns more than ever before, or maybe it’s because I’m so tired that my body is more vulnerable to the elements. My body aches for sleep. I can’t remember the last time I even napped or dozed off. I haven’t seen my face in a while now but I know two things: there’s dark circles under my eyes, and there's dirt and filth covering my face.

Two months. Maybe three since the attack happened in Trost.

Attack? No. Massacre.

I wandered aimlessly, too scared to sleep, too nervous to stop, but too tired to do much more than drag my exhausted body along until I found a place to collapse. Trees became my temporary home and “sleep” was really just a five-minute doze before I would jerk awake again with the fear that one of _them_ would suddenly gnaw my leg off. The lack of sleep must be doing things to my head, I see things that aren’t there and sometimes I still hear mom and Hitch screaming my name. I can’t sleep though. It hurts. _So much_.

The land has completely lost all meaning to me. I don’t really care where I am anymore. Nothing is safe, no sign of life anywhere, and the life I had before is just a hazy dream that sometimes I wonder if it was even real at one point. Two months feels like an entire lifetime. Sometimes I wade through knee-high weeds and shrubs, sometimes I trudge through mud and water in the woods, and sometimes I shuffle along hot asphalt with powerlines lining my trail. Either way, I remain homeless with no destination. Nothing but an empty stomach and a frantic stare.

There’s a barn along my way and I hide inside it, avoiding the main house for fear that some flesh eating monster is trapped inside. I dig around; find some hay and an old blanket for bedding, but not much more. Eventually, I took the chance and headed for the main house. The animals were all dead, bullet holes in their heads and faces frozen in rabid positions, with abnormally sharp teeth exposed.

I made it to the house. I had a shovel as my only protection, borrowed from the barn, and I was slow and hesitant to open the door. I was relieved and horrified of what was inside.

No monsters. Just a sad family lying in pools of dry blood. A mother lays slumped against the wall, daughter limp under her protective arm. A stain of blood marks the wall where the mother's head must have once rested against and little rivers have dried as they ran down the white wallpaper. The daughter's temple was smeared with blood, a hole buried under her blood stained blonde hair. A teenager in dirty overalls lays just a foot away from the mother, one arm reaching out as if he had made a dash to protect them. Three holes cover him from behind: two in his back and one in his head. And dad? The old man was laying right by my feet near the entrance, pistol in one hand and his own blood surrounding him, a hole likely to be found under his chin. I know what happened. Old man decided that if they were all dying, they were dying on their own terms. Their animals were infected and they put them down before realizing they were up next. Old man wasn’t having that. Whether they liked it or not, they were dying together as a family. I didn’t look any longer than that. They were dead, just like my mom and sister and everyone else on my street. They suffered enough.

Their rations weren’t impressive but it was the most food I’d seen in days. Canned fruit, beef jerky, some nuts, to me it was the greatest meal ever. I took what I could back to the barn, keeping my head low when I passed the family. I quietly thanked them and then apologized for what happened. Even if they’re dead, they deserve that much.

I last there for a few days before deciding to move on. The hay was decently comfortable and the blanket did enough to keep me from freezing at night. I made sure to check every corner of the barn for some flesh eater on the first night before deciding to close and lock the barn as best I could. That was the first time I slept like a somewhat normal person. For a few days, I was okay. I was alive, and I was okay.

Leaving was hard. I liked sleeping. I liked eating. I liked being safe. I borrowed a bag from the farm family, took what I could of food, thanked them again, and took the gun off the old man’s hands. He had spare bullets around the house and I felt a little safer having them with me. I reminded myself to use them sparingly; who knows where I’ll find bullets again. The blanket came along too. Needed to keep myself warm.

Another few weeks go by and I’m back to quick naps and jittery movements. My time at the barn is just another blurry memory that I question and second-guess, with the blanket as my only proof that it was even a real memory. My food eventually disappeared into my stomach and the hunger pains returned. I would spend nights and days chewing on what I could find that was edible and enduring the pain in my stomach. Some day I would tell myself how much I wanted some of that wonderfully sweet canned fruit. Pineapples, cherries, and sliced pear with whole grapes. My mouth watered and I always dig in my bag, hoping and praying there’s a can somewhere.

There never is.

I hardly use my bullets. I hide, run, cry, and use anything else just to conserve the gun. At most, in the next month that followed, I fired about five bullets. I didn’t have a lot of ammo and I would use a bullet as last resort. Yet even when I counted the remaining ones, I would always set one bullet aside, away from the ones I planned to use to defend myself. One single bullet. I didn’t even have to ask myself why I always set one aside.

The last resort.

Even if I wasn’t planning it, I knew deep down that the only death that seemed satisfactory in our situation was a death done by my own hand. If I was ever bitten by one of them, I’d shoot my own brains out before I could eat any living human being. If I was ever pushed into a corner and a single bullet was all I had left, I would put myself out before any of those monsters sunk a single tooth into my skin. I wasn’t going to let my death be controlled by them when all they’ve done is rob me of all I ever known. Mom always said that suicide was never the answer, but I know there will be a point where suicide is the _only_ answer left.

It’s the beginning of September and now I’m in an empty neighborhood. The city of Karanese is empty and silent as I make through one of it’s neighborhoods. Houses line the streets, trees losing their leaves abnormally early. Or maybe the lack of caretakers has left them vulnerable to the summer sun. Everything’s abandoned, making the place look like a ghost town. Occasionally, I see dead bodies. Heads crushed open, necks snapped, some with bullet holes in their foreheads; they aren’t getting up any time soon. Still, I walk with caution, my hand ready to take my gun out and my legs ready to bolt down the street.

Picking around the mess, I find a lead pipe and holding it makes me feel just a little less frantic. Knowing I have another way of defending myself without the waste of bullets puts me a little more at ease. There’s not much else though. Just blood, dirt, and dead bodies.

The houses prove to be no different. Most of the food is long past expiration and it seems that people already cleaned the places out before I showed up. The realization that missing food meant there had been people before made hope swell in my chest a little. It didn’t matter how long it had been since they arrived, the fact was that there _were_ people still living. I wasn’t alone.

I wasn’t alone...

As I’m staring at the emptied cabinet, lost in my shred of hope, I hear it. That faint wheezing. The same wheezing from home. Whatever joy I have inside me, it’s gone the second I hear the breathing and every muscle in my body goes stiff, locking up with fear and horror as I remember the first night of this nightmare. Mom on the floor and gurgling. Hitch with her organs and spine exposed and the cage of her ribs torn wide open, her face frozen in terror and agony. I can see them as if it’s happening right now. I can’t move, even as that wheezing gets closer and I hear the dragging of their feet. I just can’t react, even when the pipe is in my hand. I just keep seeing mom and Hitch and I keep telling myself to _fucking run_ but I _can’t_!

“Move, you idiot!”

That voice isn’t mine and it isn’t mom’s. It’s deep and angry and my body instantly turns when I hear those words. I turn just in time to see one of those freaks tower over me, mouth open and rotted teeth ready to bite into me. It’s like time slows and I only stumble back onto the floor in shock before the undead monster is thrown to the side by a blow to its head. The impact is hard enough to send blood flying, drops landing on me and I quickly turn my head away out of instinct. The thud of its body landing on the floor is loud, like a bag of cement, and I quickly turn back to see it giving pathetic gasps as it lays on the ground, blood pouring from its head before a silver bat came down with such force that…it broke the zombie’s skull. How could one blow do that? Whether it was out of fear or awe, I quickly look up at the wielder of that bat which remains buried in the mess of brains and bone.

My position on the floor makes them look intimidatingly tall and I shrink back a little when the person quickly looks down at me with the widest and darkest eyes I’ve ever seen. It’s a guy that stares down at me, freckles covering his face, dark circles under those wide eyes. His dark hair is parted down the middle  and the bangs hang somewhat in front of his eyes. I can hear him panting from the adrenaline and I freeze up even more when he drags the bat up and out of the mess on the floor, holding it on his right hand and letting it drag along the floor, leaving a long streak of red and mush. I keep staring at him. He looks just as messed up as me, maybe even more so. His long sleeve shirt is dirty and stained with dry blood. The collar of it is ripped and exposes a part of his shoulder and collarbones. His jeans have more holes and stitches in them than anything else I’ve seen and there’s just as much blood on them as his shirt. What worried me most, though, was the look in his eyes. Even after killing an undead, those eyes looked empty. They only gained life when he realized that I was a human being. He looked surprised as those wide and dark eyes took in the sight of me. I wasn’t sure how I should react so I kept still, hardly even breathing.

“…You’re a real person.” My savior finally spoke and I only nodded, still too nervous to say anything. The guy stared a little longer before he glanced at the open cabinets and pantry. I guess he was here for the same reason I was. He leaned down and I flinched back as he offered a hand to me, “Come on. We can check the next house.” As if nothing happened, this guy was offering me his help in scraping up food.

Anybody would be scared of a person after the Hell that happened on Earth. Anybody would feel uneasy when they grabbed the hand of someone who crushed a skull with just a bat. But when I put my hand in his, there’s something that makes him more human than I first thought. It isn’t visible in those dark eyes of his or in the blank expression on his face, but there’s something. I guess in the pit of my stomach, I get the feeling that this guy, the guy with the strength to break bones, was once a gentle person. And maybe it shows when he reaches up and pushes my hair back to see a scabbed cut on my head that I got weeks back while running in the fields. “Think you need a bath, too, Wheatgrass.” His choice of nickname is weird but I ignore it and let my feet drag me along behind him.

I guess I follow him because he’s the only sign of life that I’ve seen in almost 5 months. Because he’s the only thing I have right now to keep me from feeling like this is all just a bad dream. Because I need something or someone to remind me that I’m not going to wake up for school tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told you I had chapter 2 mostly done last night. Still a little short, though, so I hope you don't get upset about that. :'l
> 
> It's not long but it's something! Chapter one got some very nice comments so I hope chapter two will be received well too. 
> 
> Again, this fic is based on a [zombie AU](http://vanitas--vanilla.tumblr.com/tagged/zombie%20apocolypse%20au) I thought of and drew on my Art Blog.  
> My personal tumblr is [Vanitas-Vanilla](http://vanitas-vanilla.tumblr.com/) (Autoplay on).


	3. Jean - Shatter their bones like they shattered you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marco Bodt. 
> 
> That’s the name of the guy I’m tailing from one house to another in this dead neighborhood. And he's a survivor. A fighter. 
> 
> And he's suffered just like I have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took me a while, but hope that it's worth the wait. Here's 10,000 words of more blood, gore, and tears along with some developing friendship (and maybe more, just squint.)

Marco Bodt.

That’s the name of the guy I’m tailing from one house to another in this dead neighborhood. He’s a 21 year old freelance writer who dropped out of law school in a town called Jinae and has been living on his own for the past five months. Sounds rather familiar, huh? Any differences between us aren’t really noticeable given our situation, though. Judging from what I saw back in that house, whatever Marco was like before this Hell started, it’s not going to be seen for a long time, maybe not ever. I can’t really say I’m surprised, though, because even I don’t remember what I was like before I began living this nightmare. What was I like before? Or was I always this terrified pissbaby? Sometimes I wish I actually knew, just so I could feel like there’s a chance that I could be normal again, but how can I be normal when I don’t even remember what normal was for me?

We bounce from house to house, somehow keeping about five feet of space between us the entire time. I don’t really know which one of us is the one keeping that space open though. My guess: It’s me. Whenever I start noticing that Marco is slowing down, I slow down too, even with the open air between us. Maybe I’m still scared of what he can do.

“We have one more house to look through and then I’ll take you to get cleaned up. Sound good to you, Wheatgrass?”

I wrinkle my nose at the nickname. It’s all he’s called me since I tagged along. He hasn’t even bothered to ask for my real name, leaving me to believe that he’ll just keep calling me Wheatgrass until the end of time. We pick up our steps again and as I glare at the back of his head I finally huff, “What’s up the nickname, man?” It’s the only thing I can really think of asking right now.

Marco looks back at me, with those wide brown eyes. They aren’t scared or empty anymore. Actually, they look more alive now than they did back at the first house. Marco shrugs his shoulders and faces forward again, “What? Wheatgrass, you mean?” He laughs and I let myself scowl at him, “You’ve never seen actual wheatgrass, have you?” I don’t even know what regular wheat looks like anymore. “Y’know. Wheatgrass. That, uhm…” He snaps his fingers a couple of times as he tries to recall what it even is, “That…Health grass stuff that people use. They make smoothies and drink it. It’s tall and skinny grass.” I don’t answer and that’s enough invitation for him to continue, “It’s tall and thin. Just like you.” 

“Oh.” Well what else can I say? It’s not like he’s wrong. I’ve lost a lot of weight in the past few months. I bet I’m in danger of starvation, and maybe that’s why Marco took pity on me in the first place. Still, being called Wheatgrass is getting weird, “Well…My name’s Jean. Jean Kirschstein, in case you want to call me anything else.”

“Jean… That’s a pretty nice name. Foreign.” I can’t help my snort at his comment because I hear it a lot. People just like my name. _‘Very French’_ I get asked if I came from France, and the answer is no. My parents are technically from France but I was born in this country, right in Trost.

Our conversation has to end though. The last house we’re hitting is in our sight and Marco made it very clear earlier that silence is the best approach.

 _“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that these things have incredible hearing. Even a whisper is enough to make them know you’re coming.”_ He told me when we were going into the second home, _“Hold your breath as best as you can and make every step as light as possible. It’s the best way to avoid a fight and makes ambushing them a lot easier.”_ I watched him the entire time we snuck our way into the house. Despite his size and heavy looking frame, Marco was exceptionally good at being light on his feet. He was also cautious, his eyes always looking around, alert to every single sound and movement around us. Both of us have spent the last five months alone, but obviously, Marco has adapted much better than I have. He’s created his own survival skills. My idea of survival was running and praying that whatever is chasing me is slow enough to let me out run it. Obviously, I’m surprised at the fact that I’ve survived this long on my own.

I mimic Marco’s movements and actions, moving slow and steady. I admit that at first I was impatient. I was sloppy and careless and all I really thought about was raiding the place and finding anything useful. Again, Marco taught me better, saying that time was something we now had plenty of as long as we weren’t bitten.

 _“I know it’s hard to move slowly. You’re hungry, tired, and agitated.”_ He had said it in a way that made me actually believe that he knew, that he’s already felt what I feel and he probably had, _“I **know** , Jean, but you have to remember: Your life is the only thing that matters to you now. Whatever is inside these houses isn’t going anywhere and whether you spend five or twenty minutes just getting inside, they will still be inside the house.”_ Marco was a survivor. He didn’t spent five months hiding and running and crying like I did. No, he fought tooth and nail to get where he is today and I’d be an idiot if I didn’t listen to his words of advice.

At the last house, the porch barely creaks under both of our weight and I keep Marco in front of me, knowing that he always tests his next stepping place by slowly pressing his weight on it. If it even starts to creak or groan under him he quickly pulls back and looks for another place to set his foot. I step on the same places he does with the same amount of caution. My lead pipe is still in my hands and my gun is ready at my side, though a constant reminder to leave it alone rings in my ears repeatedly.

Marco slowly opens the front door, only to have it bump against something when it’s not even an inch open. The sigh he gives out tells me he’s had this happen before. In all the houses we’ve been to, most of them had their doors wide open, or their windows would be smashed, letting us climb in with no trouble. I watch Marco as he presses his side to the door, head close to the opening. I assume he’s listening for movement and so I hold my breath, as if the sound of it would distract him or make it hard for him to hear. We’ve only just met and yet I’ve put enough trust in his instincts to let him take over as our “leader” in a sense. I wait for him to give some kind of signal or cue to move around him or find another opening, but all he does is step away from the door and set his bat down on the porch. I’m confused and I lean closer to him, “Marco…?”

I flinch back when Marco’s foot makes contact with the door and kicks it open with enough force to knock over whatever was holding it closed. A good foot of space is now available for us to go through but I’m too stunned to really do much more than stare at Marco. He remains composed as he picks his bat back up and pushes the door open a little wider before he motions to follow him inside, “Come on.” He says. I’m still too stunned by what he just did. Whatever happened to being quiet? My face expression gives my question away and Marco shrugs his shoulders at me, “I didn’t hear anything inside. Besides, if there was someone or something there, don’t you think it would have come down by now?” His attitude still confuses me. He went from serious and commanding to careless and sloppy in just seconds. A part of my mind makes note of Marco’s change but nothing more.

Marco comfortably slips through the opening, just wiggling a little to get through. It takes me a moment but I eventually follow him, albeit a little slower and more cautious. By the time I’ve even begun squeezing by the door, Marco’s already inside and raiding the place. My lead pipe goes in first and I set it down against the wall beside the door before I get my foot in. There’s a small shelf and armchair behind the door, a poor attempt at barricading the entryway. Despite their small size, though, I’m still amazed that Marco was able to push it all back with one kick. Then again, he crushed a skull with just one blow from his bat.

“Hey Wheatgrass. You want to come help me carry all this?”

I look up quickly and find Marco watching me from around the corner. Stumbling in, I grab my pipe again and hurry over to him. What he said makes me believe there’s plenty to grab, and when I walk into the kitchen, I’m proven right.

Just like at the barn, it’s nothing amazing or stunning, but for people in our situation it’s a God send. I feel my lips form the biggest smile I’ve ever had in these long months and I faintly hear Marco give a quiet laugh, though it sounds like he’s containing his joy. I don’t care if he makes fun of my excitement, though. We’re hungry, we’re tired, and we’re desperate. My pipe drops to the floor with a loud clang and I instantly grab Marco’s wrist, “Well help me out, Freckles!” I say it so suddenly that it takes me a moment to realize I even said that.

I make quick work of emptying out the pantry with foods that have not and would not spoil. I’m setting it all out on the counter, stacking it up in no particular order but in a way that it wouldn’t fall in a heap to the floor.

“Wheatgrass, I’m gonna see if I can find some boxes or bags to carry all this.”

I only nod to answer, too busy checking a bag of bread to really turn to him. The bread inside has long since spoiled, humidity having made mold grow all over it. Deeming it as inedible, I chuck it to the side, not caring where it landed before grabbing the next item in my sight. My pile of inedible grows a little faster than the edibles…

I hear the groaning of footsteps above me after a few minutes. On instinct, I tense up and almost bolt for the door until I remember that for once I’m not alone. Marco’s making his way through each room, I can hear him treading along. Exhaling with some relief that it’s not a threat, I roll my shoulders as if trying to rid myself of any remaining concerns before going back to looking through the pantry.

Most of the hope and joy I had when I saw the pantry was starting to die out. Most of the food was already spoiled or open and half-eaten. Looking over my shoulder, I stare at my pile of edibles. It’s enough to keep us from starving, at least.

“I found a couple boxes upstairs.” I can’t help but jump at Marco’s voice. He’s amazingly light footed sometimes… He has two empty cardboard boxes by his feet and his bat is still in one hand, “We can carry everything back and keep looking tomorrow.” I nod a little to acknowledge his plan before I start gathering stuff in my arms. I hear the clunk of his bat being set down on the floor and I look up only to come face to face with Marco. Our noses brush a little and I quickly lean back to put some inches between us. Up close, I can see the hundreds of freckles on his face. There’s a faint scar on his right cheek, too. His lips are chapped and broken, the bits of dead skin clearly having been chewed right off at some point. Looking a little higher up, I see his eyes, just a little dull in emotion. It’s like life is flickering inside Marco and he’s trying hard to keep it from being snuffed out completely. A small and struggling little flame of life, like a candle inside a worn down old home.

Heat covers my arms and I flinch and look down quickly in a panic. Marco’s hands cover my arms and I feel his gentle grip. There’s callouses on his fingers and palms, I can feel them against my skin, yet it doesn’t make his hold any less inviting or calming. He goes so far as to rub the pads of his thumbs against my arms and when he shifts on his feet I look up and see those eyes holding just a little bit more light in them.

Marco’s grip finally loosens and he brings a hand up and messes up my hair that I’m sure must be disgustingly dirty. It’s an action that makes me feel a little more confused but I don’t question it. Marco’s proven himself to be a confusing person. “Come on, Wheatgrass.” He says to me, “Let’s just get our food and head home. Sun will be setting soon.” I don’t believe him but when I look outside, the sun is definitely beginning to head behind the horizon. My stomach knots at the thought of being out when it’s dark. Five months of solo travels have made me realize that the worst time to be without shelter is at night. Without a group, nights are terrifying for people like me.

I wonder, will Marco share is home with me for long or is this just a one day thing?

 

* * *

 

Our boxes aren’t as full as we’d like them to be but they have plenty for the both of us. Marco takes the heaviest one, easily hulking it over one shoulder. Even though he’s starving and exhausted, how is he still able to have such an impressive amount of strength? Meanwhile, I’ve lost most of my strength, or maybe I’ve just given up on using it. Even my slightly less than full box is heavy for me and I try to lug it up and over my shoulder like Marco, but I nearly fall backward, having Marco push me back up right with his free hand before I waste the little food we have.

“I live in the house with metal gate in front.”

I look around Marco as we walk, seeing the gate he mentioned. The house is a simple style, two floors and nothing fancy about it. The garden has long since been dead, flowers wilted and dried into crisps, bushes losing their leaves and leaving them almost completely bare, and the grass is completely brown. (My heart goes out to the original owner who probably slaved away making their yard look beautiful.)

The gate groans as Marco nudges it open and it swings open slowly. The sound it gives kind of makes me shiver, the sound being rather and I roll my shoulders with a shudder as if to shake it off. My action makes Marco chuckle and I frown a little at him. His response is just a crooked grin before he heads to the front door, “Shut the gate will you, Wheatgrass?” He calls over his shoulder at me and I use my foot to push the gate closed. It clicks into place and stays shut and I watch it for a couple of seconds before deeming it as secure and heading to the porch.

Marco left the door open for me and I hear him unpacking his box inside. Just as I did in the last house, I hesitate to go in. Even knowing that it’s safe I still fidget by the door and peek inside by poking my head in and glancing around. The walls still have picture frames and decorations but most have fallen off and now lay on the floor, untouched and unmoved. The furniture is more or less okay; some things turned over or dirty though. I notice the windows are blocked, though. I don’t question why; the answer is obvious.

“Come on, start unpacking. The sooner we get this all out, the sooner we can eat something and get some sleep.”

Sleep. The word alone is so foreign to me that I don’t realize what sleeping even is until it hits me a second later. My body practically screams for a nice place to sleep and I quickly go to start putting out rations away. Marco shows me his setup: check every label and put everything in order of expirations with the “newest” foods at the far back of the cabinets or highest shelf of the pantry.

“This way, we’ll be eating the foods that are closest to expiring and reduce the risk of wasting good food.” He says as he shuts the pantry door, tossing the empty boxes we brought into a corner, “Of course, we always check what we’re eating, too. Getting food poisoning is also considered a waste.” He left out two cans of food for us and he grabs them both off the counter, reading their labels before glancing at me and holding one out to me, “Here. For your hard work, Wheatgrass.” When I take the can from him, I look at the label and my mouth waters.

With a handheld can opener, the sweet scent of pears hits me first. It isn’t mixed fruit like at the farm but anything is better than an empty stomach. When I hear crinkling, I quickly look up, my fingers already about to go straight into the pears. A see a plastic spork wrapped up in clear plastic being held out to me. Marco stares at my confused face and then nods toward my hand, “I don’t think you want to stick those fingers in your food until we get you cleaned up tomorrow.” I have to look down to realize what he means. Sure enough, my fingers are stained with mud and dirt and probably blood and my finger nails are practically black with the amount of filth stuck under them. My face gets warm from embarrassment and I take the spork from him, mumbling a small thanks and unwrapping it.

That first bite of pear is the most amazing taste I have had in a long time.

 

* * *

 

 

“So, the bedrooms are upstairs. Only one is available, though, so we’ll be staying there together. Water doesn’t run in this house though, so bathroom is off limits. The pipes were busted under the foundation when I arrived so I had to shut the valve off since it was just spilling out under the house. We can do another sweep of the street, though, and see if any of the other homes have working water.”

I follow Marco as we go up the stairs after we finish eating. He goes in front and his bat comes along, dragging behind him and occasionally thumping against the steps. It’s still stained in blood from when he saved my ass and I cringe a little at the sight, remember the way that monster’s head was shattered.

The bedroom has boarded windows, just like downstairs, and there’s pillows and blankets laid out on the floor. The bed is completely stripped of its sheets and covers. I look to Marco for an explanation and he shrugs his shoulders at me before he heads to the “bed” on the floor, moving the set up around to accommodate the two of us.

“Not many blankets so it may be a little hard to sleep, but you’ll adjust.” Marco suddenly reminded me of the blanket I kept from the barn I stayed in. I quickly drop my pack, which has been attached to my back this entire time, and I unzip it. Inside is just the blanket and the extra bullets that I have managed to conserve. The cases rattle a little as I pull the blanket out and hold it out to Marco. He stares at it and then at me, “You’ve had that this whole time?” I just shrug in response and toss my blanket onto his pile before zipping my bag closed and getting up to my feet.

I slip my gun from my pocket and set both my pack and gun down on the floor by one side of the pile of blankets. While Marco sets up our bed for the night, I start getting ready to lay down, kicking off my shoes and pulling my dirty socks off. Unzipping my pants, I glance over my shoulder at Marco, “Excuse me but I can’t sleep in jeans.” I felt it would be polite to give him a little warning before I suddenly dropped my pants in front of him. All the walking we did left my scrawny legs sweaty and damp so my jeans stick to my skin as I pull them down. Goosebumps form when the air hits them and I shiver a little from the way it feels. Folding up my jeans, I drop them next to my bag and gun before dropping down onto the floor where we’ll sleep.

“Nice undies, Wheatgrass.”

My face gets hot and I must be blushing as I glare up at Marco, “Fuck you, Freckles. Don’t judge the Batman logo.” Yes, I am wearing Batman boxers and I have been stuck in them for the past five months but I do not care. It’s better than free-balling it, after all. Being a cranky guy, I just flopped my head onto my pillow and yanked the blankets over myself, hiding my ridiculous underwear from the freckled jerk standing over me and rolling onto my side so I face away from Marco. I stare at the wall across from me and listen as Marco sets his precious bat down on his side of the floor. There’s a soft whoosh of air as something lighter is dropped to the floor and then I hear the clicking of Marco’s belt coming off. It comes down with a loud clank and as Marco finally lies down, he gives out a sigh that shows how exhausted he is. I feel his pain. My own body feels exhausted now that I’m finally letting it rest and even if it isn’t the best bed, it’s better than forcing myself to stay awake. I feel myself dozing off almost immediately, and on instinct, I try to fight it off.

“Just let yourself fall sleep, Jean. You’re okay here.”

Marco’s tired voice comes out of nowhere and it startles me a little. I glance over my shoulder and see he’s facing in the opposite direction of me, his back exposed and I hold my breath at the sight. Not only does he have hundreds of freckles on his skin, but scars too. Scars and bruises. The largest scar runs down from the top of his spine and down just below his shoulder blades. A straight scar that looks almost too perfect and precise to have been from an accident.

My eyes are starting to drift closed again and I can’t stop myself as sleep starts taking over. That scar remains in my sight thought, even as my eyes drift closed, until I end up in the dark and my head drops back down onto the pillow. I’m too comfortable to keep worrying about Marco’s scar.

 

 

_There’s so much blood. I can’t even see the asphalt under my feet. Every step I take comes with a sick squelch of a sound. The world is a wreck around me. The homes are broken, burning to the ground. The flames go so far into the distance around me that it paints the horizon a bright orange. The world is in ruins and I don’t know how it happened. The farther I go, the messier the ground gets._

_More blood._

_Bodies. Some whole. Some torn._

_Limbs._

_Chunks._

_Organs._

_Guts._

_My stomach lurches and my feet crush an organ in my path._

_A heart?_

_A kidney?_

_I don’t know._

_Some of the bodies moan._

_Some wail._

_Some utter pleas of help._

_I can’t help… I’m so sorry._

_“Jean…”_

_My blood goes cold. That voice… I know it. It’s behind me, but I don’t remember passing her. I didn’t see her. “H…Hitch?” My voice breaks. Her name even tastes strange on my tongue, the letters forming uncomfortably. I’m shaking like a leaf and I take one, two, three breaths in preparation before I face her. Slow, careful, cautious. I turn to look at Hitch._

_Still in Marlow’s shirt. Still in those blue plaid boxers. Hitch…_

_“Jean…”_

_Her skin is stained with dirt and blood, rivulets running down her thighs and calves, down to her ankles and the asphalt. Her shirt is dyed red, boxers soaked to a navy color. Her shoulders are sagging, tired and hopeless being the only words that can describe her posture. She looks so small, so fragile, like a rag doll that can be plucked off the ground and hang limp in someone’s grasp. And her face…_

_She looks lifeless, with eyes dull and unfocused, as if they’re staring into the abyss. Her hair is in tangles, matted with blood that sticks to her scalp and cheeks, and there are dry trails of salty tears staining her face. My heart breaks at the sight…I just want to hold on to her and tell her it’s okay. “Hitch.”_

_A gurgle comes from her throat and it makes me stop in my tracks. Choking… She’s choking. Her body jerks forward with another gag and I watch, in horror, as blood sputters from her mouth. She drops to her knees and then to the ground, and I see it._

_I can see the exposed vertebrae of her spine, the broken bones of her ribs, the missing organs, and the string of intestines that have been pulled out. Her entire back is painted red, and she lies face down, still choking, still gagging, with blood pouring from her mouth and pooling around her head._

_She’s dead…_

_My sister’s dead._

_And I can’t do anything about it. I just stare with horror and fear running through me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Hitch._

“I’m sorry.”

I feel the words physically leave my mouth as I jerk myself awake, but Hitch isn’t there. Hitch is gone, and I’m lying on my back, staring at the ceiling, and trying to catch my breath. My heart is racing, pounding against my ribcage, and I try to breath slow and steady in hopes of calming down. Confused, I look around, not remembering where I am. It’s completely dark with slivers of light from the moon outside breaking through the boards on the windows. I glance down at myself and find thin and miserable blankets covering me, keeping me as warm as they possibly can in the cold room. The thin sheet of sweat on my skin makes me shiver and burrow under the blankets in an attempt to keep warm, turning onto my side. I’m startled when I see someone next to me, not remembering who it is. My eyes slowly adjust and I slowly remember. Dark skin, freckles, brown eyes with flickering light.

Marco’s still dead asleep, curled up on his side with his hands curled tight around the edge of the blanket and close to his chest. He looks more relaxed like this, the circles under his eyes less noticeable and his lips are parted slightly, letting quiet snores come from him. What gets to me, though, is the tears coming from his eyes.

Small tears cling to his eyelashes and occasionally drip onto his pillow. There’s no sound coming from him aside from his even breathing and gentle snores, but he keeps crying. For a second, it slips my mind that Marco was alone. He’s alone because he lost whatever family he had. Why else would he be here with no beside him? He suffered, just like I did. Just like this whole world did.

I’m very careful as I reach out to him and gently brush away the tears that are threatening to fall. I touch his skin and he barely flinches, burrowing just a little further into the blankets. His eyebrows knit together a little before he relaxes again, letting out a soft sigh in his sleep. Back to that peaceful expression on his face. His tears stop almost instantly and I feel a little relieved. Perhaps he was startled awake enough to put an end to whatever he was dreaming of and now he can settle back down in a dreamless sleep.

Seeing Marco more relaxed, I lay down too and pull the covers up over my shoulder. I face him this time, watching the way his body moves with every breath, slow and steady with it’s own unique rhythm. It relaxes me, making me forget my nightmare, forget the blood bath.

Forget everything and go to sleep.

 

* * *

 

I groggily wake up, groaning with discomfort as I blink a few times and force my eyes to open. The room is still cold and I don’t see any sunlight breaking through the cracks between the boards on the window. I do see that it’s gray outside, and I make the assumption that it’s just really early in the morning. I don’t think I’ve ever woken up this early back when my life was still normal. If I didn’t have school then I would sleep until noon, maybe even later.

The blankets slip off my chest as I sit up and I glance to the other side of the blanket pile, expecting to see the guy who took me in. I’m met with an empty space and blankets that have been twisted around. Marco’s absence worries me and I quickly look around the room for him, but he’s not here. Putting my hand down on his side of the bed, I notice that it’s still a little warm, so he hasn’t been gone long. Good. I get myself untangled from the blankets and stand up. My knees and ankles pop as I stretch and put weight on them and my arms go over my head as I stretch my back, hearing a few joints popping there too. It feels…good to have a decent night’s sleep. My jeans are still by my side of the bed, as well as my bag and gun. Taking my pants, I slip them on, getting ready to head downstairs. It’s the only place Marco could be.

I didn’t really get a good look around the place when I came up last night. I was too tired to really care. Then again, what is there to see. I noticed that Marco took down any frames and pictures, either out of respect or out of paranoia, I’m not sure. The hallway is bare, save for the few stains of blood. One room is shut closed and as I try to open it, I find it locked. My guess: Marco did that. I look down, ready to drop to the floor and peek under the door, but stop the moment I see blood. It’s long since gone dry but it’s all I need to see to understand why it’s locked. The family died in this room, and now Marco wants to keep it closed off from the world. While I doubt that he left the bodies in there, (they would have reeked by now) he must be hiding the sight from both himself and me.

With my shoes off, my feet don’t make much of a sound as I go down the stairs. Moving slowly, the boards don’t groan under me like they did last night. I have a habit of moving quietly in the early mornings. Something I used to do back in my normal life. Last night there wasn’t much light in the house. During our “meal” last night, Marco had explained that half of the house was dead when it came to power and he found that the fuse box was a damaged and some switches were completely dead. The only room with power were the bathroom, kitchen, and half of the living room.

The stairs take me down to the foyer and I follow the hall to the living room. The half that can still work is lit up and I can see where Marco is, and it makes me freeze up the same way I did last night. Marco’s positioned on the floor, doing push-ups and quietly keeping count under his breath. The numbers are breathed out every time he pushes himself up with his arms. His shirt is tossed over a nearby dining chair and I can see that same large scar on his back. His posture is nearly flawless with his body parallel to the floor every time he comes down. His only problem is the way his arms quiver when he has to bring his weight back up. Despite that, though, Marco’s face was completely stoic. Focused. He was still counting quietly, though I can’t really be sure what number he’s on.

I stay by the entryway, just watching him and marveling at his stamina. Maybe if this was five months ago I would be able to keep up with him. I’m not scrawny, or at least I wasn’t. I had my share of muscles, I had my strength and energy, I used to be able to out run the guys on the field during gym class and I was a demon when it came sports. I may not have been built like a tank like other guys but I was fast and I was strong. I just got too caught up in my fear to keep any kind of training going. Marco, however, seems to have stuck to his. He looks like a professional and his body shows it. His back has the same muscles any of the guys had back in school, and his arms weren’t weedy either. There’s probably a four pack somewhere too. Marco survived because he didn’t stop taking care of himself, or he got back on his feet after the grief threw him down. He’s a fighter.

Marco’s count comes to a stop and he finishes by holding his weight up on those shaky arms, visibly holding his breath as he holds himself still. I assume he’s counting in his head but I’m more focused on how much he’s shaking. He can’t be that tired. The way he was moving was too perfect for this to be a challenge for him, yet his arms are shaking like leaves, threatening to give out. I wonder, are his arms more worn down than the rest of his body? I stare at them and I notice there’s these red marks on the inside of his elbow. They’re almost the size of quarters and their color, while not vibrant red, is still noticeable even against his dark skin. There’s about three or four of them, all centered in the middle of his elbow. Maybe that’s what’s making his arms so weak.

Marco suddenly exhales and he lets himself get to his knees, stretching and flexing his arms and I notice he’s rubbing at those red marks. He puts extra care into massaging them with his thumb as he stands up, glancing down at his elbow as he turns to me, and to my surprise, he has more scars on his body. His chest has three scars perfectly lined together as though something with claws raked it’s fingers on his chest. Little scars are scattered around his sides and abdomen, as well, but they’re nowhere near as noticeable as the ones on his chest.

“How long have you been standing there, Wheatgrass?”

I jump in surprise and find Marco staring at me, still with a blank expression as he grabs his shirt off the chair and starts pulling it over his head despite the thin layer of sweat that’s formed on him. I try to bring my attention to anything other than the scars on his body, shaking my head a little while Marco pulls his shirt down. “Uhm… I, uh…” My mouth feels like it’s completely in knots and I hear Marco chuckle at my stuttering.

“Relax.” He tells me, coming up and ruffling my hair like he did yesterday, “Can’t blame you for wanting to sneak a peek of my wonderful good looks.” I sputter at his words and he just walks away, laughing like a maniac. My face gets hot again and I scowl at his retreating form. Cocky bastard…

Once Marco’s laughing fit is over, he pulls out two cans of food, calling my name and tossing one at me, which I barely manage to catch, narrowly avoiding a broken nose from a can of food. I check the label and to my surprise, it’s a can of sliced peaches. I look at what Marco has and all he’s eating is two bars of granola. Hardly a breakfast. He catches me staring and holds out my can from last night where my spork still sits, “Here.” He says around a mouthful of granola. The can opens is next to him and I go over to grab it after I take my spork. I open my can and we’re silent as we eat.

Before I take my first bite, I glance at Marco again. He hasn’t grabbed anything else to eat and I worry that he may be purposely giving me the better foods so I don’t die on him. I find it unfair and stare long and hard at the spork that holds part of a peach. I haven’t done anything for Marco and he’s already giving me better food. He’s giving me a place to sleep, a roof, and protection. And he still insists on giving me the better food.

“Jean? You alright?”

He calls me by name for once and I look up to find him watching me in concern. He’s leaning his back against the kitchen counter but turned a little more towards me. One of his hands hand holds the unopen bar of granola, the other hand is lifted halfway to his mouth with the opened bar in his hold. He’s watching me, though, and has a small frown on his face. Again, I look down at my spork and then back up at him. I take a step closer and he only looks more confused when I set my can down on the counter.

“Jean, what-“

With one hand free, I catch him by the chin and use my index finger and thumb to squeeze at his cheeks, hard enough to make him wince and force his mouth open. He makes a pained sound but I muffle it by sticking my spork in his mouth and letting him bite down on it. I finally let him go and Marco coughs as he pulls the spork out of his mouth, chewing at the peach while giving me a look that literally screams _“What the fuck, Jean?”_ I just shrug, like usual. It takes a while for Marco to say anything, even after he swallows. My rough treatment must have sent some syrup down his windpipe and he coughs a few times to clear it before glaring at me, to which I respond with a small grin. “What the Hell, man?” I knew he was going to ask, so I grab my can and take my spork from his hand and grab another bit of peach, holding it out once more, although this time, Marco leans away as if I was some threat. I can’t help but laugh at him.

“Relax, Freckles. Just eat it.”

“You know that’s your share, right?”

I can’t stop myself from frowning and lowering my spork a little, “Share? Marco, you’re giving me the better food and taking the smallest things first. I hardly think this ‘share’ is even fair.”

Marco glances at his poor excuse for a breakfast and cracks a very small, forced smile, “You’re a poet and don’t even know it.” He murmurs and it makes me bristle a little seeing him completely walk around what I’m trying to say.

“Dammit, Marco, don’t change the subject!” I go to force the spork back into his mouth but his teeth bite down on the granola, effectively stopping me from jamming my food down his throat. He doesn’t face me but his eyes are definitely watching me as he chews. I hope he isn’t this infuriating all the time. Annoyed, I shove the spork into my mouth and glare at him the entire time that he eats.

 

* * *

 

Breakfast was spent in silence with me glaring at Marco and Marco watching me in boredom as he finished his miserable meal. I occasionally forced some of my food into his mouth though. (I learned that my fingers should never actually touch Marco’s mouth when I catch him by surprise. My thumb still stings from the harsh bite he gave me.) I gave up trying to argue with him, especially after he started letting me feed him willingly, though sometimes he would turn away or block my spork with his granola. In the end, he ate just a little more than two granola bars and that way enough to make me happy.

I come down the stairs after breakfast, carrying my backpack and gun and grabbing my pipe from its place next to the front door. Stuffing my gun into my pocket, I open the door and Marco follows me out, ready to take on the day. As we leave, I yawn and stretch my arms over my head, feeling far better now that I’ve slept a few hours, “So today’s agenda is to find a home with running water.” I look back at Marco and he smiles and nods at me in agreement. He did say that was what he wanted to do today so it seemed like a good plan.

“And afterward, we scavenge the last of the houses.”

“The last?” I look back again and Marco walks a little faster to be next to me, “You’ve already pillaged the entire neighborhood?”

“Jean, I been through the entire city of Karanese. There’s hardly anything of value here.” Marco’s face looks a little grim when he says that and it worries me more than I care to admit. “Honestly, the last four houses here are all that’s left to look through. After that, we just have to last until our rations dwindle and then we have to move on.” I seem very interested in how he said “we”. I can’t stop the little smile that twitches at my lips.

“You said…we.” I say it slowly and carefully, in case he wants to correct himself, but he doesn’t. He really meant to say it. “So, that means you expect me to come with you?”

Marco’s shoulders twitch when he laughs but it doesn’t sound mocking or joking, “Hell, you can come along or you can go on your own. Whatever you want. Just know that you’re fully welcome to join the Team Bodt.”

Snorting, I lightly shove Marco and walk ahead of him, “Alright, Captain. Guess I can stick around for a while.” Marco can’t see it, but I’m smiling at the fact that now I have a partner. No more traveling alone, no more running, no more nights without sleep. I had someone to watch my back and I would watch his. It may not make the entire world better, but for now, it’s enough to make me feel like there’s a chance at normality for me.

Since there are four houses left, Marco thought it would be best to just start pillaging while hunting for clean water. While we wouldn’t be able to drink it, we sure as Hell could get clean with it. We went for the first house that hasn’t been opened. The door is thrown wide open but we still follow with our usual caution. I keep close to Marco, letting him lead us again. I finally feel like I know what I’m doing, like I’m prepared for anything that can come at us. I don’t feel like some scared little kid now after what Marco’s taught me.

I let Marco go in first, watching him walk slow and steady into the house while I stay put outside. There’s a bit of a buzz in the air to me, making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I shiver a little because it feels uncomfortable, a tense feeling around me that makes me feel like I’m back in the woods with nobody at my side. My palms are sweating against the lead pipe and I tighten my fingers around it nervously, “Ah, M…Marco? Everything all clear?” I really don’t know how long Marco has been in there. It could be five minutes or five seconds. Either way, I’m not getting an answer and it makes me even more nervous than before, “Marco? Marc-“

I hear a rustle nearby and quickly turn around, scared shitless and looking left and right like a paranoid fuck. The rustling came from behind me and I can’t find anything moving. The bushes aren’t even shaking as though they were recently disturbed. Nothing looks different…

“Jean?”

I jump and quickly turn against, this time finding myself face-to-face with Marco who looks worried. For a second, I feel some fear spark in me, expecting him to give me some bad or grim news. Then I realize that he looks worried because he’s worried about _me_. I look over my shoulder again, staring at the next yard and the street but there’s nothing there. _‘You’re still a paranoid wreck. Just relax.’_ I think to myself and force myself to take a slow and deep breath before turning back to Marco. He’s still watching me with concern and I move closer to him, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. “I’m fine.” I tell him that because he doesn’t need to think that I’m still not ready to watch over myself. I tell him that because I need to convince myself that I can still keep myself sane even after five months. I tell him that because if he can keep himself sane, then so can I.

Together, we go inside, and the house is a complete wreck. Furniture is broken and flipped over. The dining table is shattered completely in half, collapsed into the floor as though something heavy was thrown on top of it. The TV screen is shattered and knocked onto its back. Vases and portraits are all shattered and scattered everywhere. I hear a faint clicking to my right and I look over and see Marco flipping a switch on and off. He’s watching the lights over our heads but nothing happens.

“Power must be cut in this place.” He says and gives the switch one more swipe before going further into the house. I follow, just so I won’t be alone in one room. In the back of my head, I hear that rustle from outside, echoing nonstop like a warning signal. An alarm.

The kitchen is covered in broken glass, the window above the sink having been completely shattered. Shards crunch under my feet and I tighten my grip on my pipe every time I hear another crunch. Again, the lights don’t work. I walk over to the sink and slowly twist the knob, and just as slowly as I turned it, water begins trickling out of the valve and into the sink. With the end of my pipe, I let the water hit the metal and try to decide whether it’s clean or not. I tense up when a hand grabs at my shoulder and then a hand comes into my view, nudging away the pipe and testing the water.

“It’s clear. Not filth or residue. Just really cold.” Marco’s voice puts me at ease a little, the way he keeps his voice quiet and reassuring. He shakes the leftover water off his fingers and shuts off the sinks before leaning away from me, “We can check upstairs to see if a shower runs and you can get yourself cleaned up.” He starts walking away and I watch him. He says I need cleaning up but he’s almost as dirty as I am. His shirt still has stains and his jeans are tattered and dirty, mud covering the seat of his pants, and his skin has its share of blood and dirty on it. Marco’s a wreck, too, but all he cares about is making sure I’m okay.

“What about you?” I can’t help asking. He deserves to clean up too, just as much as I do. He doesn’t answer, though, and I hear him going through the living room. I glance back at the sink before taking my pipe and heading out to find him. Marco’s looking in the other rooms on the first floor. An office and then a guest bedroom. I keep tailing him into the bedroom and we both see the little bathroom connecting to it, complete with a shower.

“I’ll keep watch, you shower up.” I can hear it in Marco’s voice. He feels something isn’t right either. I don’t know why he isn’t saying anything about it, though. If he feels something is wrong, he would pull us out of here, right? Marco’s a survivor. He’s lasted five months, he’s beaten zombies off with just a bat, and he just wouldn’t leave us in a situation that doesn’t feel safe. So…Why isn’t he admitting that something doesn’t feel right?

My heart is racing inside my chest; I can practically hear its hum in my ears, blood pumping through me at a scary fast rate. I breathe in deep through my nose and exhale slowly through my mouth. Keep calm, Jean. Maybe all of this worry is my paranoia. Marco isn’t nervous. Marco’s okay and nothing it wrong in this house. I’m imagining everything.

“It’s okay…” I breathe the words out and I actually feel a little better. Just a little. Satisfied, I hunt for a clean towel in the cupboard, ready to take a much-needed shower.

The shower is freezing cold and I bite back the shriek when it hits my bare back. If I wasn’t so dirty, I would go without bathing until I found some decent warm water. I have to admit that the water pressure is phenomenal, though. Even if it is freezing cold, it’s a little like a massage, hitting my stiff muscles perfectly.

The water is filthy as it runs off me. Without any shampoo, I can’t wash up as well as I’d like but I manage to rub off what I can. To think that I almost I forgot what my own skin looked like when it isn’t covered in a layer of dirt. I try to pick the dirty from under my nails, finding that they’ve grown a bit over time. A couple are broken, cracked or chipping after enduring my travels.

I feel cleaner than ever after a while and I slowly shut the water, leaving me in a silent room with the sound of droplets surrounding me. The silence is both relaxing and nerve-wracking. It’s like it’s so overwhelming that I can’t stand it yet at the same time I crave it. I want the silence.

I grab the towel that’s just outside the shower and carefully wrap myself up in it, stepping out into the bathroom. It’s been a long time since I felt anything this normal. A normal shower in a normal bathroom (well it would be normal if there weren’t things scattered around the floor). The towel might be a little rough but I don’t care. I carefully dry myself off, seeing the incredible difference now that I’ve had most of the filth cleaned off. For a second, I forget all about my situation. The hell that’s outside the bathroom door. The blood bath that happened in my home. I forget everything, too focused on just how normal things feel for me right now as I start dressing myself. The only thing that breaks that sense of normalcy is the fact my clothes are still disgusting. I think asking for a washing machine would be pushing my luck. Well, at least I’m clean.

I just drop the towel on the floor and walk out, taking my pipe with me and dragging it along. It scrapes along the floor of the bedroom carpet and begins making a racket when I reach the tiled floor of the living room. “Marco?” I don’t see him anywhere. I don’t hear his footsteps upstairs, either. It worries me, but I try to not let it get to my head. _‘But he said he would be standing watch…’_ I grip my pipe a little tighter and lift it off the floor, ready to take a swing if I need to, “Marco? Where are you, man?” He still doesn’t answer, and I wander over to the kitchen in hopes that he’ll be there, “Marco come on. I don’t-“

I barely feel the hot breath against my neck before I quickly turn, pipe up and held in both my hands as I’m forced onto the floor by the screaming monster above me. My pipe digs into its windpipe, holding it back as he thrashes and snaps it’s yellowed and sharpened teeth at me. I purse my lips tight as it drools on my face and neck and I’m so damn glad it’s grasping the pipe and not my arms as I try to force it back.

Dammit, these things are strong! Even with all my strength, it’s still pushing back in an attempt to bite my face right off and I’m afraid I can’t hold it back any longer. Where the _fuck_ is Marco?! I turn my head away so I can safely open my mouth without risking the zombie’s slobber falling into my mouth, and I scream the only name that’s on my mind, “ **Marco**!!!” I scream it so loud that my throat burns right after but I do it again, “Marco, help me!! Marco!!” Where is he? Where is he!? When I face the thing above me, I freeze up at the sight of its withered face and bloodshot eyes. It shrieks in my face and as it snaps its teeth just above my nose, I realize that my arms aren’t holding back its weight as much as I wish they were. I can’t stop the tears from pouring down my face. I’m going to die. I’m going to die right here. I feel a sob come out of my mouth and I think of my mom and of Hitch. Are they going to pick me up off the floor once I’m dead?

Mom… Hitch… I’m sorry. I tried to last as long as I could. I close my eyes and wait for those teeth to chomp down on my face.

“Get the hell off of him!!”

The shriek above is cut off and déjà vu happens as the flesh eater is beaten off me. I hear the familiar crack of its skull being shattered from the metal bat that smashes its head.

Marco…

Unlike last time, though, this zombie doesn’t stay down. Even with its head bleeding, it lunges at Marco, who’s standing in one spot, completely still and gripping that bat in both hands. I scream before I can stop myself, “Marco, move!!”

With a scary amount of strength and skill, Marco takes another swing just as the monster goes in for the kill. Again, he bashes it to the floor and it lands in front of his feet. Without missing a beat, he begins beating it down. All over. Every swing looks painful for the monster. Marco’s letting his own beast out.

“Filthy…freaks!” Marco’s voice sounds different now. Scary, deep, and menacing, drenched with so much venom that I’m surprised I can’t taste it in the air. “Just! Fucking! Die!!” I can hear every bone in the zombie’s body crunching to pieces every time Marco slams his bat down on it, along with the sick squelch of blood, flesh, and organs being pounded. The zombie still cries out, though, but I think it’s from pain rather than hunger.

The laughter that bubbles from Marco scares me more than any shrieking banshee can. He laughs. Laughs as the zombie starts weakly crying for mercy. He laughs and then sobs and I can see the tears dripping from his face. “Doesn’t feel good, does it?” He sounds so broken yet so damn satisfied. “How does it feel? Huh?! How does it feel to scream for mercy!?” I can’t take this anymore, though.

I get up and rush over, catching Marco’s arms before he can take another merciless swing into the zombie’s already crushed chest and skull. Marco struggles against me though, trying to shake me off. “Let me go! Let me go!!” There’s a painful blow to my face that sends me to the floor and my mouth feels numb from the impact. Startled and dazed, I stare up at Marco, and he looks just as shocked as I feel. Marco elbowed me right in the face… All because I tried to stop him.

“O-Oh my God…” Marco sounds disgusted with himself as he realizes what just happened. He reaches out to me and then pulls his hand back. I don’t know everything that he’s feeling, but guilt is very clearly written on his face. “Jean… Jean, I’m sorry. I didn’t…” He looks down at the hand that holds the bat and quickly drops it as if it burned his skin (and maybe in a way, it did).

I’m not mad. I’m not scared. I’m just…worried. And I try to make that clear to Marco as I slowly stand up and move closer, “Marco? You…You okay?” I don’t care about what he just did to me. Marco’s the one who is hurting right now. He’s been hurting silently for a long time now.

“I’m… I’m sorry.” He’s in tears again, shaking like a leaf, like I did back in Trost. He stumbles back, away from me and away from the now silent and crushed carcass of the monster on the floor. He stumbles until he collapses against the wall and slowly slides down to the floor, “I didn’t… I just- I’m sorry. Please…”

I’ve never really been the type to comfort people. I’m abrasive and sharp and careless with my words, and my solution to problems is always to run. Run as far and as fast as possible. But Marco can’t run. Fuck, he can’t even crawl away from any of this.

Nobody can run away from the monsters in their head…

Even as I’m wrapping my arms around him, Marco keeps shaking, murmuring apologies at me. He has a vendetta against these monsters. He wants them all dead, and even with the satisfaction of killing them, he feels pain. He feels agony and torture when he sees their crushed bodies at his feet. Seeing him like this, I want to take away that pain. No matter what, Marco is still my only companion right now, and even if we meet more people along the way, I’m staying next to him. We have our demons inside us, but I’ll fight them all off, just for him. He gave me a second chance, now I owe it to him.

“I’m sorry, Jean…”

Marco doesn’t deserve to sound that small. I squeeze my arms around him and let him cling to my shirt as he cries. “It’s okay, Marco. It’s going to be okay.” Will we be okay? Maybe. Will the world be okay? …I’m not sure. But for now, it’s alright. “Come on, Marco. Let’s get home.” I help him up and hold him close as I pick up my pipe and his bat off the floor, “You can have the mixed fruit tonight. You’ll like it.”

Something sweet always made me smile…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alriiight, so I already had the ending to this chapter in my head, it was just a matter of making this chapter totally worth the wait. Next chapter, you'll get to hear some more of Marco's story in Marco's POV. I hope to switch between him and Jean.  
> If you ever want to post about this fic somewhere in tumblr, use the tag fic: manicnpanic (because obviously fic: manicpanic ended up with the obvious selfies of people using Manic Panic dye lol I always pick bad titles) 
> 
> My tumblr is [Vanitas-Vanilla](http://vanitas-vanilla.tumblr.com/). (It has Autoplay, sorry)


	4. Marco - Reopening old wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What happened to you when this all started?”
> 
> Jinae didn’t get word of the infection until well after it had spread. In fact, I didn't even know what was happening until it had already come in through our front door...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah this chapter came out sooner than I thought. It's not as long as last chapter which had reached 10,000 words, but this is still an impressive 7,000. 
> 
> So! Here you have it. Some Marco backstory. 
> 
> As usual **this chapter contains some blood, death, and gore during Marco's story.**

Have you ever emotionally drained yourself so much that afterward you feel so light and numb you’re afraid that your legs may give out under you or you may float away into the sky at any moment? If it weren’t for Jean, I think I would either be flat on the ground or up in the clouds. His arms around me are keeping me on my feet despite our slow and shuffling pace. I’m dragging my feet along with Jean tugging me to keep me going. We were supposed to check the other houses…

“Jean.” I’m so numb that I hardly feel my lips form his name. It just tumbles out quietly. “Jean… We can keep checking the houses. I’m okay…” I hit him. I _hit_ him. How is he still next to me after I turned my anger on him? He doesn’t know…

His arm squeezes me around my waist and he keeps leading me along back to the house I’ve been staying in for the past couple of months. I’ve been all over Karanese, and this was one of the last few areas that seemed to have anything useful. It’s been a dead zone for weeks, excluding out little run-in today.

Jean keeps his head pointed forward and looking as determined as an alert canine, “We’re going home, Marco. You need to some rest.” I need rest… After what happened, he’s putting my well-being over his own. He wants _me_ to be okay. He looks down at me and he has this crooked smile that he’s partially forcing just to lighten our moods, “Like you said, we have all the time in the world now.”

_‘Yeah… All the time in the world.’_

My bat is in Jean’s hand, along with his lead pipe. My bat has a few dents at the end, obviously unable to withstand the last beating I gave to those _things_. I’ve had that bat for a while now. It would be a shame if it broke anytime soon.

We shuffle along, with me still leaning on Jean for the support. My body continues to tingle and buzz, as if a gentle hum is resonating through my bones. It’s both relaxing and exhausting. Maybe my body is trying desperately to coax me into a state of such relaxation that it wants to shut down on me. It’s looking for a way to get me to just sleep and recover from my breakdown. One of my legs gives up trying to move and just drags itself on my next step, nearly sending both Jean and I head first into the asphalt. Jean turns out to be a little stronger than I pegged him to be, though, and he catches us before he drop.

“Come on, Marco. We’re almost there.” His lips are so close to my ear that I can feel every syllable brushing against my skin, “You’re okay, Marco. You’re okay.”

Jean, I’m not okay. You saw that. You saw and felt it. I’m not okay.

“Marco…?” He stops just outside of the metal gate of our safe house and turns to me. His hands hold my face between them, thumbs brushing at my cheeks and…why is my face wet? “Marco? Marco, what’s wrong?”

I’m shaking from my head to my toes. I’m shaking almost as bad as I was in that home, next to that dead body. The way its bones cracked under my bat. I heard them shattering, I heard the organs bursting, and I heard it screaming. I wanted it to scream. I wanted it to scream the same way _they_ screamed: Loudly and begging for mercy. It won’t change anything, but I’ll get the satisfaction of making these things suffer. At least, I think I’ll feel satisfaction. I didn’t feel it very much today…

Something brushes my bottom lip, prying it out from under my teeth that are biting at it hard enough to make blood trickle down my chin. Jean’s thumb is what I felt, wiping at that blood and teeth marks left behind. He’s watching me in concern, those honey colored eyes looking just as worried as the day he first showed up. Since I met him, Jean has reminded me of a puppy, a lost puppy that’s just looking for its way home. And I’ve taken that pup under my wing and taken up the responsibility that comes with it.

Turns out I’m a pretty shitty owner.

“…’m sorry, Jean.” I don’t feel these words, either. I don’t feel them rolling out of my mouth. I look away from those honey eyes and stare down at the cracked asphalt under us. I see Jean’s hands reach for mine, slowly taking them into his own. I’m pretty filthy compared to him now. I can hardly see my freckles in some places, too covered up by the dirt and blood. His hands, however, are so pale. Pale and clean, untouched from the filth around me. It’s like he’s in an entirely different world now, all because of some dumb shower.

Jean turns my hands over, my palms up and his hands cupping mine from below. His thumbs gently knead at the part of my palms they can reach and it somehow calms the hum in my bones. “Marco… Can we head inside to talk about this? If you want, of course.” I forgot that we were still standing outside of the house. We’re sitting ducks and I don’t think I’m capable of taking down another one of those undead monsters. Now with Jean next to me. I nod, and his hands slowly close around mine to squeeze them gently. I feel something press against my forehead. Something warm. A kiss. Jean pulls away from me, letting of my hands go so he can lead me by the other one.

The house feels uncomfortably heavy. There’s nothing in the house, though. I know. It’s just us, and the heaviness is the cloud that’s been following us around all day. Jean leads me upstairs, slowly and quietly, as if he thinks something will hear him. Maybe he feels the tension too. Jean’s paranoid, though, and it’s probably hitting him a little differently than it’s hitting me. He feels things differently than me. We’re both broken, just in different ways. Jean’s cracks run in a different pattern, in a different direction starting from the outside and going inward. My cracks are thicker, deeper, like a spider’s web and they run from the inside and branch outward.

“How about we lie down for a while? Just…relax.”

I slowly look around, seeing that we’re in the bedroom. When did we get here? Did we climb the stairs that quickly? The warmth from Jean’s hand slips out of mine and I slowly look down, watching as he arranges our bed into a less messy appearance. He fixes the pillows, smooths out the wrinkles, and finishes with a gentle pat to my side once he’s settled into his own place. He looks back up at me and this time, his smile is a little more real. “Come on.” He says and I slowly drop to my knees and get comfortable. My body is so tired. I can’t even keep my eyes open anymore, drifting closed only to have me quickly open them again. Jean must know it, because he reaches forward and combs his hand through my hair, the sensation finally forcing me to let my eyes close. He’s so gentle and careful with his movements. He avoids any tangles and even scratches at my scalp a little. I can’t stop the quiet moan that ripples in my chest. I love when my hair is played with, ever since I was a kid.

“Just sleep, Marco. It’ll be okay.”

Jean’s voice sounds so far away… I don’t like it. “Don’t go.” Please don’t go, Jean. Please don’t leave.

Another warm pressure. Right against my temple. This time, they linger, and I can feel Jean’s lips moving against my skin, “I’m not going anywhere, Marco. We’re a team, remember?” A team. “I’ll be right here when you wake up. I promise.”

Please, Jean. Please don’t leave me, too…

 

* * *

 

  _I can’t breathe…_

_I can’t breathe!_

_There’s something in my mouth, lodged inside and kept in place by a belt around my head. I’m scared to pull it off… The tube inside my mouth flow out of the mouth piece and goes upward, out of the water-_

_…Why is there water? Why am I in water?_

_“Marco Bodt.”_

_Marco… That’s my name. Who’s saying my name? Bubbles blow around every time my arms flail in the water. There’s tubes sticking into me. Into my hands, my arms. Patches are stuck to my skin on my chest and back and head. A sting of pain shoots through my fingers as they bash against something hard. Glass? A glass wall around me._

_Where am I…?_

_“Marco Bodt. Respond.”_

_Who is that? Where are they?_

_I see him. I see him behind the glass. Someone in white. They’re smiling at me._

_Please let me out… Please._

_They smile. They just keep smiling at me. Like a hungry wolf… Why are they smiling at me?_

_My hands hurt from beating on the glass, the only sound in this tank being the dull pounding of my hands. I want out of here. Please get me out of here!_

_“He’s perfect.”_

_Perfect for what? What am I perfect for!?_

_“Sedate him. We’ll take him in. And make sure his family receives their first payment.”_

_This isn’t what you promised! This isn’t what I signed up for!_

_I want out! **I want out!**_

 

“Marco. Marco, wake up!”

I jolt awake and gasp for air. It feels like I was in that tank, my whole body is soaked. A cool hand presses against my forehead and I naturally flinch away and look up. Jean’s honey eyes are staring at me and I immediately breathe out, the relief coming over me because _I’m safe_. His hand comes back down and runs through my hair gently, just like before. My shaking body slowly relaxes just from his touch and I hope to God he doesn’t stop.

“God, Marco, you’re covered in sweat… You kept mumbling and whimpering in your sleep. What were you dreaming about?”

 _‘Hell. I dreamt of Hell.’_ I can’t tell him that, though. He won’t understand. It’s my nightmare, not his. I just want him to stay with me. I don’t want to spend another five or ten or twenty months alone. I don’t want to wander around by myself, fighting the zombies right and left, hiding in empty sheds and houses, and scraping by on just a few cans of food.

“…Marco, I need to ask you something.”

This is it. This is where he asks me why I acted the way I did back in that house. As terrified as Jean may be, he isn’t stupid. He knows when something is wrong, and he felt it back then. I just wonder why I didn’t say anything to him. We both were obviously feeling something wrong in the air, yet I didn’t bother saying anything. Jean trusted me to lead us through the day without incident, and what happened? I attacked the zombie and him. Now he wants to know why. Why is Marco Bodt such a wreck? I feel Jean shift around until we’re laying on our sides and facing each other. He pulls his hand away from my hair and slowly grasps my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze before he slowly takes a breath, “What happened to you when this all started?”

I focus on the way Jean’s fingers run across the knuckles of my hand, gliding over my skin in a slow pattern. I watch his longer fingers curl around my hand and I pry my hand free long enough to force my fingers between his. I fill the spaces and press my palm against his, all while thinking of what to tell him. Jean waits patiently for me, with those honey eyes staring at our joined hands. “Where do I start?” I mumble while rubbing my thumb against the side of his hand.

“Just start wherever you want, Marco.”

Wherever I want, huh? I think about it while I turn our hands around so that the back of Jean’s hand faces me. He wants to know about what happened when this all started. That’s five months. If that’s what he wants to know, then that’s all I’ll give him. I won’t feed him more than what he asked for, and if a day comes when he wants to learn more, then I’ll tell him. For now, we’ll just start at the beginning, in Jinae.

My heart beats harshly against my chest, racing as I try to muster the courage to tell him. “I…came from Jinae. It took me three months to get from there to Karanese, so I’ve been staying here for two months now.” I take a quick glance at Jean from beneath my bangs, and he’s watching me with a patient expression, not saying a word and just waiting for me to keep going. I slowly look back to our hands and let out a quiet breath, “Jinae didn’t get word of the infection until well after it had spread. In fact, I didn’t know what was happening until…” My throat feels swollen, making it hard to swallow let alone speak. Jean squeezes my hand and I have to close my eyes to keep it together, “…Anyway, the infection hit us well before any alert of emergency personnel showed up. I was at home, just working in my room. I told you that I was a writer and I was going through a few drafts, making changes, rereading what I had written. And…then I heard them. Or, I heard what they were doing.”

 

**Jinae – May 3 rd**

 I flip through another paper on my desk, red marks and circles scattered all over the page. I put it face down, maintaining the order of my work to avoid any confusion. It’s easy to get thrown off when just one paper gets out of place. I bring up the next sheet, red pen tapping at the stained and scratched surface of my desk. Just a few more pages and I should be able to take a break without worrying too much on this chapter.

I’m working on my first novel, a fictional story that I’ve been trying to get started for years now. After dropping out of law school, I’ve tried anything and everything to make my writing career a possibility just so I wouldn’t feel like I threw away my entire life. I was lucky that mom didn’t eat me alive for what I did when I came home one day with my bags from school. She was furious when I told her that I had dropped out and while it still is a touchy subject, she didn’t force me to go back. So I got a part-time job, helped her maintain the house and take care of my siblings, and I paid a small amount of rent to make up for what I did. It isn’t easy, and we sometimes argue about it, but in the end, it’s my life and whatever choices I make are my own. Besides, I was lucky to pay off the loans and grant I owed with the money I earned two years ago from a little job I did, but I try not to remember it…

I skim along my words, hunting for every error I can find. I skim it, then reread it, then reread it again backwards, something I’ve always done even with school essays. It’s a decent way to catch mistakes. I sit back in my chair and take a deep breath, rubbing my eyes, which ache from staring at that paper.

There’s the sound of stomping on the first floor and it makes me quickly look to my door, expecting someone to come running up. I hear muffled shouting downstairs and it worries me. I feel a knot form in my stomach, and then an instinctive urge to run came over me but I refused to listen to it. Where would I run, anyway? My room is in the corner of the second floor, with only the door to the hallway being the way out.

There’s a sudden slam downstairs, something falling and breaking and I finally stand up, going for the door. Whatever if happening, it’s something serious. My gut and the sounds both say so. I grasp at the knob but it twists in my hand without my help and I quickly let go just in time to avoid having the door swing into my face. My sister Marie comes bolting in, pushing me back and slamming the door behind her. Her hair is in tangles and she looks pale, petrified, her own freckles standing out against her colorless cheeks. That knot tightens in my stomach and I open my mouth to speak, “Marie-“ Her hand slaps down against my mouth so hard that it stings and I wince against her palm.

“Don’t say anything.” I freeze as she tightens her hold on my mouth and she leans closer to me, still with that petrified look, “I need you to get into your closet and stay in there. Stay in there, and do _not_ come out until I say so.” I try to speak against her palm and she jerks me roughly, her other hand suddenly grasping my arm. I wince and whimper when her nails accidentally dig into my skin and she jerks me again, “Marco, do you understand? Get in the closet and stay quiet. Please.” She whispers the last part to me and she looks like she’s just begging me to listen. I hate seeing my sister when she’s on the verge of tears and I can see her hazel eyes are wet and rimmed with tears.

I always do whatever I have to just to make her happy. So why stop now?

Against her hand, I nod, and her fingers slowly loosen around my arm, leaving deep crescents against my skin. Her palm slides away from my mouth and she pulls me into her arms, giving me the tightest hug I’ve ever had. It’s enough to squeeze a quiet wheeze out of me but I return it, still confused and now scared. As she pulls away, I try to ask what’s going on but she motions to be quiet with a finger to her lips, “Remember, Marco.” She’s whispers to me, “Stay quiet. And don’t come out until I say so.” Her smile is a little shaky but she gives me one regardless, “Just…think of it as that game that we used to play, okay? You hide and stay quiet and I’ll come find you, okay?”

I’m too worried to think about hide and seek, right now.

Marie goes running out again, shutting my door behind her and I’m left in my room with a sense of danger around me. I feel like something, anything, could just jump at me at any second and the thought of that makes me shiver. I suddenly feel like a kid again, thinking of the monsters under my bed or outside of my window at night. Except this time, the safe spot is in my closet instead of under my blankets. Just as Marie told me, I crawled into my closet and shut the door behind me, ignoring how little space there is. I’m so grateful there’s a lock on both sides of the door, and when I feel like nothing can get in, I press myself into the corner and watch the door. Light creeps in from the bottom of the door and I avoid it like the plague. I try to make myself as small as I can, trying to keep from being seen even from under that small crack of space between the door and the wood floor.

I spend what feels like hours in there, cramped in my too small closet, trying to ignore how hot it is and trying to move as little as possible despite my joints and muscles screaming for me to just stand up and get out. In my closet, I can barely hear anything anymore. Maybe the occasional muffled hum but it was so hard to make out any words. I keep thinking back to Marie, the terrified look on her face as she told me to hide. Why? Why was she so scared, and why did I have to hide here?

Why wouldn’t I just go with her?

There’s thudding outside, still not loud enough to be inside my room. Is it in the hallway? Is Marie coming back? My muscles are still screaming for me to come out, too compressed to stay curled up and my heart is starting to race, making me feel anxious and fidgety. Marie, please just tell me it’s safe to come out.

“Marco?”

That’s not Marie, but my heart leaps regardless. I recognize the voice and I can’t stop my shaky and growing smile. Marie didn’t say anything against answering to mom.

“Marco, honey? Where are you?”

Immediately, I open my mouth, ready to just call out that _I’m in here_ and I just want to come out and ask what’s happening. I’m barely forming the words when I something running into my room and then a painfully loud and shrill scream. My mouth instantly shuts and I’m pressing further back against the wall, my knees pulled so hard against my chest that it hurts.

The inhuman snarl behind my door fills me with complete fear. I can’t stop my shaking and mom keeps screaming for help, for whatever it is to stop, she just screams and screams and screams and I slap my hands over my ears and bury my face into my knees.

_‘It’s just a dream. It’s just a dream. Wake up. Wake up!’_

It’s not real. It can’t be real.

I can still hear screaming even through my palms. Please stop… Please, let her go… Please don’t hurt her. I feel the sobs trying to come out of my mouth and Marie’s voice screams in my head.

_‘Stay quiet!’_

I immediately press my lips together but I can’t stop from crying as I try to keep the sounds of mom’s screams from being heard. I don’t want to hear her… Something slams into the closet door hard enough that I jump and have to slap my hands over my mouth just to keep from letting out a startle cry. I can feel my heart jumping straight into my throat, my pulse pounding so loud that I can hear it in my ears. I drop my hands to lap and…I don’t hear anything. Mom’s gone completely silent. So did whatever the Hell was out there with her.

“…Mom?” My voice sounds so small, a pathetic croak. I don’t hear any movement at all. My eyes follow the outline of the door, lower and lower and something catches my attention from the corner of my eye.

A little whimper comes out of me and I instantly turn myself away from the door, pressing my face to the corner of the closet. That was…blood. There’s blood just _leaking_ under the door. Mom. Mom, are you…?

“Marie…” I whimper and I press my hand to my mouth again to muffle my sobbing. I bite into my palm and just cry, “Marie, please... Please come back. Please. Mom’s-“ I can’t even finish my sentence. I can’t. I don’t want to say it.

_Mom’s dead._

Mom’s dead, I didn’t do anything to help her. I didn’t come out. I just hid like a stupid little kid…

“I’m sorry, mom.”

 

I slowly wake up, my body aching painfully. Did I dream everything? Mom, are you okay? The sharp sting that shoots down my neck tells me it wasn’t a dream. I’m still cramped up in the closet, still hiding, and still _useless_. I don’t know how long I’ve been in here anymore. I fell asleep and hours could have already passed.

_‘But where’s Marie…?’_

I immediately turn to the door, staring at the doorknob. Everything is untouched. It hasn’t been opened and nothing’s been moved. Marie was supposed to have come back by now. She was supposed to come back and let me out and she was supposed to tell me what happened. I suddenly feel terrifyingly angry.

Angry at Marie.

Angry at myself.

Angry at the thing that murdered my mother.

My hands are trembling as I kick everything aside and grasp the doorknob in a tight grip. Marie… You were supposed to get me out of here. You were supposed to come back. Where the hell did you take Izzy and Zack? Did you even save them, or did you leave them behind just like you left mom and me? Did you call Matt? Did you even tell him what happened…?

I pull the door open but the moment I take a step forward, whatever anger and fire I had in me goes cold when I feel the sticky feeling under my foot. My body is completely tense as I slowly look down. I can hear myself starting to cry, the tears are falling and I slowly lift my foot away from the puddle under me just as I look at the source…And I scream.

I fall back into the closet, my back hitting the wall painfully hard but I’m screaming too loud to even feel the impact, let alone hear it. I just scream… Scream in fear. In distress. I scream for mom, even though her mangled body is right in front of me, with half her intestines hanging out of her and her jugular torn out completely. I scream for Marie, even though I know she is nowhere near here. I scream as if someone had just torn a limb from my body, because nothing has ever hurt this much.

I scream until my throat is raw and sore. The screaming dies down and I sit slumped against the wall, still staring at mom’s body with eyes as wide as a deer’s when caught in headlights. I don’t feel myself crying anymore. The only way I know I’m still crying is how my tears land on my hands. I can’t feel anything in me anymore. That pain I felt was half of me dying.

I’m all alone. Mom’s gone. Marie left. Matt’s not coming.

It’s just Marco now.

 

* * *

 

Jean’s still silent when I finish, watching me with a look that can only be read as sympathy and pity. He’s still lying beside me, our hands connected and thumb rubbing slow and soothing circle on my skin. I look at our hands and watch as mine tremble in Jean’s. I realize that I’ve been crying this entire time, wet streaks soaking into the pillow under my head. Who wouldn’t cry at these memories, though?

“…What happened to your siblings?” Jean finally asks me, still watching me, his expression not changing. My grip on his tightened as I tried to remember the rest of that day. Wandering out of the closet, dragging myself away from mom’s body, heading downstairs-

“Izzy and Zack were dead.” My throat threatens to close up on me as I remember seeing my little brothers on the floor. My breathing gets shaky and I feel the next wave of tears in my eyes, large drops rolling out like heavy rain, “Zack was bitten. Almost his whole shoulder was torn off because he was so small.” I choked on the last couple of words, unable to help it because _he was just a fucking kid._ He wasn’t even close to his eighth birthday.

“And Izzy…?”

Izzy. Izzy is the one I die a little inside remembering. “…He wasn’t dead.” I hear Jean sharply inhale, and I guess he thinks I meant Izzy was still clinging to life. God, I _wish_ he had been. I wish Izzy had still been a live, breathing and giving me just a second to apologize for not saving them, for not helping mom. “He tried…to bite me. And I…” The first time I killed one of those things, I was scared and weak and staring eye to eye with my own brother. The first time I killed an undead, I stabbed it with a kitchen knife. Right in the temple. “…I killed him.”

Izzy was closing in on his fourteenth birthday around the time that everything started. He was excited because Matt promised to show up this time instead of letting work take over. We would all be together under one roof, enjoying the day and spoiling Izzy just as we did on any other birthday. I squeeze Jean’s hand and focus on the warmth radiating from his palm, “We were planning his birthday. I promised that I would let him read the first chapter of my story…” He was so excited. He begged and begged me ever since I announced that I had dropped out of law school to be a writer. His eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when I said that he would get to read the first chapter for his birthday.

“Marco…”

I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear an apology for something Jean had nothing to do with. “I read the chapter to him. I read every word to him.” I had sat down next to my brother’s body, the knife still jammed into his head, and I had my drafts with me. Every single one of them. “I read him the first chapter of my story. And just because I liked him so much, I read him the second chapter two.” My voice is shaking just as much as my body, more tears pouring from my eyes. I cried when I read to Izzy, too. “I told him…that it was an extra gift because he wasn’t such a brat to me that day.”

I can’t hold it in after that. I can’t stop myself from crying, letting out a loud and rather painful sob that it feels like my chest is being torn open. Izzy wasn’t such a brat. Zack wasn’t such a bother. Marie wasn’t such a damn bitch. And Matt wasn’t so cold hearted. I wish I could take everything back; every argument, insult, and shout. I wish I could tell Izzy that I honestly thought he was the brightest kid in the entire damn high school, especially after he built the most amazing birdhouse with scraps from the neighbors shed. I wish I could spend a little more time with Zack to play his dumb kid games instead of shooing him out of my room because I was “too busy to play.” I wish I could kick Marie’s ex-boyfriend in the ass after he dumped her for her friend instead of telling her to take her drama somewhere else. I wish I could talk Matt just to make sure he was eating and sleeping okay instead of telling mom that I wasn’t in the mood to talk to him.

I wish I could hold onto mom again and let her stop me from crying right now…

Instead of mom’s warm hugs, I’m being held in Jean’s awkward and weedy limbs, my head against his chest and listening to the steady drum of his heart. A mother’s arms can’t be replicated, but being held here, in Jean’s arms, it’s just as good. He’s warm, gentle, and I can hear him murmuring soothing things into my hair even though I can’t make out what he’s saying. I don’t care, though. I just want him to hold me as long as possible. As embarrassing as it is being seeing like this, I don’t care. Jean’s my partner now, and we’re both going to break down from time to time. The world is different now. It’s more cruel.

I’m still sobbing quietly after a while but I’m able to focus a little better, and Jean’s been petting at my hair this whole time. His fingers twirl around strands of hair or his nails occasionally scratch at my scalp. It’s soothing and keeps me from cracking any further. Jean can really do wonders sometimes.

“Ah-!” Jean’s fingers make contact with a certain part of my head and I can’t hold back the slightly pained sound. He pulls his hand away quickly but then comes back to gently trace at a large scar on the back of my head. He accidentally pressed too hard on it and it stung pretty bad.

Jean keeps tracing the scar a few times before he moves his hand away, resting it at the base of my back, “You have a lot of scars…” His tone makes me frown a little. He sounds too hesitant asking that question. “I… I saw the one on your back last night and the ones on your chest this morning. And now…” I give him a small nod to show that I get the point and his fingers curl nervously against my neck. “So, where did they come from? What happened?”

I’ve shared so much today, let Jean see parts of me that I had hoped nobody would ever see. He’s seen enough of what’s inside me. What can one lie do at this point? “The back is from surgery done years ago, and my chest was from a bad experience a few years back too.” Carefully, I reach up and touch the scar on the back of my head, “This I got from falling down a pretty steep hill before I arrived in Karanese. Hit myself pretty bad.” I trace the scar, falling the few inches that it runs before I pull my hand away and rest it against Jean’s chest. He makes a low hum in response before his fingers come back up and trace my scar again. He’s purposely being gentle, not wanting to hurt me again, and I appreciate that. The pads of my fingers gently drum against his chest as I listen to the steady beat of his heart. “So…Can I ask what happened to you?”

Through Jean’s chest, I hear him laugh and the low sound reverberates inside him and fills my ears in an oddly soothing way. His voice is just as deep and soothing from this position and I can’t resist closing my eyes just to enjoy it more. “Hope you’re ready for another round of water works, Freckles…”

 

* * *

 

It’s really late at night when we’re both silently holding on to each other, our eyes red and our faces sticky with dried tears. Jean broke down midway through his story and I had to give him time to calm down before letting him continue. He was a wreck by the end, mumbling apologies to his sister Hitch and his mom. It reminded me of how I begged my family to forgive me once I left Jinae. I felt like I had been abandoning them by leaving our hometown. I felt no better than Matt or Marie.

“You think your sister is still alive?”

I’m laying with my head against Jean’s shoulder and I give a small half-hearted shrug, “I don’t know. I hope she is, though, but…” I don’t need to finish my sentence. We both know that the chances of other survivors being around or even nearby is very slim. As much as we would love to cling to hope, it isn’t healthy. We’re already so broken down, giving ourselves too much hope for a near impossible thing would just hurt whatever sanity is left in us. If we lose our sanity, then we may as well be dead already.

“Hey, Marco?” I make a questioning sound, nuzzling at Jean’s shoulder and leeching off his warmth. “Where are we going after this?”

“Where else? We just pick a direction and keep going. We can go wherever we want.” Things are different now and there is no limit to where we can head. It’s a new, twisted kind of freedom. “I have a map. I was just heading east for now. Nothing else behind me except Jinae.” I twisted myself around until I was lying on my side, facing Jean but still using his shoulder as my own pillow, “Actually, I was thinking of heading to the coast. I’ve never been there so I figured now was as good a time as any.” Actually, I wasn’t heading toward the coast. I just lied through my teeth to lighten the mood that was threatening to darken at any second. I actually hated the water. I hated being _under_ water. _In_ water…

I watch Jean slowly smile and he steals his shoulder from me so we can lie together facing each other again. Seeing his smile this close to me, it makes my heart leap a couple of time. Each of his breaths brush against my nose and lips and it takes every drop of strength in me to keep myself from moving closer. Those honey eyes flicker across my face before Jean’s smile grows a little more and I let myself smile too. One of Jean’s hands comes up and brushes across my cheek and I can’t deny that it sends a little tingle through my skin, as if his fingertips are just radiating energy or warmth. I know exactly what I’m feeling. I’ve had relationships before. I had girlfriends and boyfriends before; they’ve made my stomach turn to knots and my thoughts cloud a little. Jean does so much more, though. Jean calms my nerves; he swallows me up in a feeling of pure bliss. He makes me forget what’s happening around us, or at least numbs the fear and potential dangers we will face once we have to leave our little home. I’m smitten with this skittish kid who only survived by running as fast as his legs could take him. My only fear is that I’m going to attach myself so much that I might just lose it completely if he turns into one of _them_. I don’t think I can let myself get past just smitten. I don’t want to.

I feel pressure against my forehead and I frown as Jean rubs his thumbs against my brow. “What the _fuck_ …?” I breathe out, leaning as far back as I can to escape the prodding. Squinting at Jean, I make a face demanding an explanation. He still grins at me and a light chuckle blows out from his lips.

“You were making that face you make whenever you’re thinking a lot. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you’ll get wrinkles from frowning so much?” What…?

“Yeah, well guess what, Wheatgrass? You do your fair share of frowning too.” Getting a little playful, I let myself come close to him again and suddenly pinch at his cheeks, lightly tugging at them and making Jean snort rather loudly as he tries to pull away. I can feel the grin on my face as I try to keep him close, “What’s wrong, Wheatgrass? I’m just trying to keep those wrinkles from showing up!”

It’s so easy to trap Jean in my arms again. When it comes to strength, I have the upper hand. Jean’s strategy of picking flight instead of fight has left him a little lacking in the strength department and the lack of food hasn’t done him any favors. Two days of canned food isn’t going to make a big change for him. He’ll need to work to get some of that muscle back.

My arms wind around Jean’s waist and before he can shove me away, I roll onto my back and haul him with me, sprawling him across my chest. He sputters another laugh as his palms rest against my chest, “Jesus, you big bear. I’m going to need to bust my ass to get as toned as you.”

Patting Jean’s back, I loosen my hold enough so that he can at least hold himself up enough to look at me properly. I let my fingers trace the knobs of his spine, making note to keep giving him a little more food so he can get some weight back on him. “If you want, I can train you. You’re going to need some muscle if you really want to survive and sometimes running isn’t going to be enough.” Jean shifts on top of me and shrugs his shoulders a little. I keep running my hand on his back and stare at the ceiling, “It’s just an offer. Either way, you’re still welcome to stay with me no matter what.”

“Why are you letting me stay with you? Isn’t a second person more of a burden? Another mouth to feed, you know.”

Closing my eyes, I stop rubbing Jean’s back and instead tap my fingers on his spine, “True, but I’m not the type to just kick someone out when I know they’re scared shitless. Besides, having someone else around makes it easier to survive. A team effort. Besides, somebody has to keep you safe, Wheatgrass.” I look at Jean and smile at him, “I’ll save your ass if you get into any trouble.”

Jean smiles at me and runs a hand through my hair, gentle as always. I can’t help leaning into his touch and letting my eyes slip closed again. He keeps petting my head for a while, toying with my hair until I feel a light touch against my forehead and then something brushing my nose. I open my eyes and see that Jean’s leaned close enough that our foreheads are touching together and the tips of our noses are brushing occasionally. The closeness makes me flinch a little. I hadn’t expected him to be this close, but I’m not complaining. My fingers curl around Jean’s shirt for a second before I slowly tighten my hold around his waist. Jean’s fingers are still touching at my hair, one hand gently scratching my scalp and the other hand rested against my pillow and playing with the shorter strands behind my ear. Being this close to Jean, though, isn’t going to make things easier for me.

As much as I would like to stay like this, I know I can’t. I let Jean have another few moments with his eyes closed, our noses together before I gently bump my head against his, “Hey, come on. We can still do a little scavenging before dark, right?” I try sitting up, pushing Jean off me but he quickly pushes me back down. I stare at him, surprised by his actions, and Jean hovers over me with an unreadable expression, his hand still holding me down by my shoulder.

“Can…Can we just stay like this for a little longer?” I just keep staring, unsure of how to feel by this request. Jean slowly lowers his gaze as if he was suddenly ashamed of asking to stay like this, “I mean… Well, we can check those four houses tomorrow. You’ve had a pretty tough day; I just want us to…” He trails off slowly, words fading off his lips. I know what he wants. He wants us to forget today. Forget my breakdown, forget our pain, forget the memories we dug back up. He wants us to forget and cling to the one sliver of bliss and peace we can get: Comfort from each other. And I’ll be honest, I want it too. Besides, I can’t say no to Jean.

I wrap my arms around Jean’s waist again and hold him close. He looks at me and I bring a hand up to bring his head back down until he’s resting against my shoulder. I feel Jean sigh and his body slowly relaxes against mine. His hands cling to my shirt and I rub slow circles against his back until his breathing evens out. We lay in silence, Jean’s fingers occasionally curling and uncurling around my shirt.

Tomorrow everything goes back to normal. We go back to digging through houses and planning our next move. We’ll be back to nervously looking over our shoulders and waiting for the next time we’re attacked. For now, though, we’ll just forget. I’ll let Jean forget.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you go. Now you have an idea of Marco's experience. It's different from what I originally planned which was that Marco would actually see his family dying, but I decided to throw a bit of a curve ball and change it a little. I hope it was still good. 
> 
> My tumblr is [Vanitas-Vanilla](http://vanitas-vanilla.tumblr.com/), and if you ever post anything about this fic you can use the #fic: manicnpanic tag or you can @ me or tag me in it with #vanitasvanilla.


	5. Jean - Tell me, are you sane?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I can't stop worrying. I wonder, is Marco okay? Am _I_ okay? Will anything in this world _ever_ be okay again? 
> 
> The cracks in our heads and the destruction around us can't be ignored. We don't know what'll happen next, except that we're in this together, whether we're okay or not.

It takes two days for Marco to go back to his old self. After he broke down, we stayed in bed the rest of the night, ignoring any hunger we may have felt and just letting ourselves forget. We forgot the zombies, the blood, the tears, and the pain we suffered in these past months. Marco was quiet after a while and I didn’t bother squeezing words out of him, so I just held him, petting his hair and putting an occasional kiss on his forehead or temple until I heard slow and even breathing beneath me. We slept in the next day and Marco skipped his usual work out. He said he was sore everywhere but I guess I believed it because I figured he meant he was emotionally sore, not physically. I didn’t want to question him, anyway. He was still recovering. We both were.

We did go back to rummaging that day, but we took our time. We were more cautious and moved slower. I knew Marco was having trouble focusing, though, and so I did my best to help him navigate through the uninhabited home without another run in. It took a while for Marco to coax himself into grabbing his bat again, almost walking out barehanded until I called him back in.

“You can’t fight the zombies with your fists, Marco.”

He mumbled something after I said that but I didn’t understand him. He took his bat and walked out before I could even ask him to clarify, and even when I followed, the way he kept his head down and lips silent told me that maybe it was best not to ask.

In the past two days, we cleaned out the last of the homes. Unfortunately, they offered very little. Some cans of food, a few clean blankets, and some stray bullets from one house. And, of course, bodies…

Marco had found them first. I sent him upstairs to check the other rooms while I dropped what little food there was into the boxes we brought. I checked labels and dates until I was sure I had grabbed every non-perishable and still edible food available, and I realized Marco still hadn’t come down. I hadn’t heard a sound from upstairs and I was both worried and confused. Marco wasn’t a quiet fighter. No, if Marco had run into anything, he’d be loud. That was my first thought, but when I remember just how detached Marco had been since his break down, I began thinking that maybe he was too out of sorts to even fight.

I left our box at the bottom of the stairs and went up. I ignored the streaks of blood, the scratches, the fallen and broken picture frames with cracked glass. There was an open door at the end of the hallway and I stepped over the pile of broken porcelain from the vase that was shattered on the floor, but as soon as I went to peek into the room, Marco’s wide frame covered the view and he shut the door before I could even see. Face to face with him, I felt his palm pressing against my chest and saw the slightly grim look on his face. He was holding me back and my stomach did turns because I could feel the tension radiating off him. And then I looked down, and I knew.

Marco’s hands were dyed dark red. My shirt was being stained but I didn’t care. His hands were covered in blood and he looked like he just attended the funeral of his own relative, and in a way, he may as well have. Ignoring the slight lurch of my gut, ignoring the tingle of distress shooting up and down my body, I took hold of his hand, held it in both of mine. I could feel the slickness of the blood, making our skin glide in a sickening way, but I pushed the feeling into the back of my mind and focused on Marco. He wasn’t looking at me but I understood his actions of blocking the door, and I appreciated it. In silence, I slowly let go of his hand and wrapped my arms around him, neither of us caring that our stained hands were making a mess of our clothes. Marco held me tight as if he was protecting me, and I held him as if I was soothing the invisible wounds in his head.

“…I didn’t want you to see.”

I just nodded, because I knew. Even if he was in pain, struggling with covering the open scars that he scratched himself, he still cared about me. That’s why I decided that I had to stay with Marco, and I had to lick his wounds for him before he bled out, before he was either dead or insane. We went home in silence after that.

Marco still gave me the better food, he still ate less than I did, and I still forced my fork down his throat because I knew he wasn’t going to feed himself right. It was a back and forth between us where he’d bite whatever scrap of food he was eating and I’d sneak my fork into his mouth whenever I could. Eventually, he began expecting my forkfuls of food and would willingly open his mouth for me, making these feedings a little easier. Maybe he just got tired of struggle with me.

At night, we’d hold on to each other, sharing body heat and trading quiet whispers of comfort before we let ourselves fall into sleep. Sleep was just another battle for us. We cried at night just as much as we cried in the day. Those two nights, I woke up to Marco whimpering in his sleep, curled up into a tight little ball against my back with tears running down into his pillow. For those two nights, I forgot my own fears and my own nightmares, just so I could focus on Marco’s. He needed me to hold him together, before he completely shattered into pieces.

So waking up three days after the breakdown, I’m surprised to find Marco completely gone from our pile of blankets. Slowly sitting up, I look around, trying to find him in the dark. I don’t hear any movement at all and I put my hand down on Marco’s side of the blankets, finding it to be completely cold, which means he had to have left quite some time ago. Sometimes I wish we had a clock in here just so I could get a general idea of how long I slept. I always felt like I took a power nap and not a full night of sleep, but maybe that’s because Marco and I have only had one somewhat peaceful day together and that was when we met.

I feel myself getting worried the longer I sit and wait without Marco and for once in my life I get out of bed without complaining about the lack of warmth. I grab my pants off the floor and quickly wiggle into them while simultaneously making for the door, leaving behind my socks, shoes, and gun. I only take my lead pipe and that’s only because I’m worried that Marco may be in some trouble. I’m already imagining him coming face to face with another one of those monsters roaming around. He’s not in any condition to fight and I’m still afraid that he’ll freeze up if he sees another one of those things, or worse, he’ll lose himself to that hunger for revenge. As cold and wrong as it sounds, there’s something that Marco shares with those things and it’s the need to shed blood. I understand that when Marco lets himself go, he won’t stop until he sees blood, but when he loses control of himself, he risks breaking his mind even more than he already has. Each meltdown is just another blow to the crumbling pillar of Marco’s mind.

The stairs groan under my weight like usual, but in the dead silence downstairs, it sounds like a gun going off, loud enough to make me cringe and try to slow my movement as if that will make the creaking quieter. I almost expect to find Marco in the living room doing the same exercises he was doing just two days ago. Instead, the living room is empty, everything untouched. My next hope is that Marco’s in the kitchen, but it’s empty too. Our stash of food is undisturbed so I know Marco hasn’t even eaten yet, something that worries me even more. Normally, he at least takes something small to hold off his hunger.

My footsteps sound so loud to me, especially in the foyer. Just as I reach the stairs, I stop and notice something: Marco’s bat is gone. He normally leaves it downstairs by the door, but it’s gone, and I don’t remember him taking it upstairs with him last night. For some reason, my stomach twists at the idea of Marco going out on his own. Again, I suddenly get that image of him being attacked. I picture some beast lunging at him from behind, and tearing into his-  _‘No, Jean. Don’t let yourself think like that!’_  My pipe still in my grip, I don’t hesitate to throw the front door open and rush outside, slamming the door closed behind me before I run out of the yard and into the street, “Marco!?” The world is unusually bright today, almost mocking my current distress. A peaceful picture around me while I’m running down the street in search of my only friend. I completely ignore the fact that I’m barefoot, despite the fact that it’s probably the most reckless thing I can do right now. With all the damage around Karanese, I could step on some glass or broken metal and next thing I know, I’ll be a complete burden on Marco.

“Marco!” I don’t even know if I’m running in the right direction or the wrong one. For all I know, Marco may have gone up the street instead. Hell, where could he be, though? He always told me to stay close, why can’t he do the same? “Marco, just answer me!!” My feet are already starting to hurt from the roughness of the asphalt on them and I have to force myself to stop just so I don’t fuck up my feet. Can’t run if I have road rash there. I look back to see how far I’ve gone and realize I’ve moved pretty far from the house, yet I still haven’t seen Marco. As much my mind is telling me to turn around and just wait for him to come back, I force my legs to walk forward. I’ll just reach the curb at the next street and then if Marco isn’t there, I’ll go home.

The street corner comes up sooner than I expected, and I round the corner to take a glance, standing under the bent street sign before I come to a complete halt. A thick trail of blood runs along the asphalt, a long streak as if something was dragged away. I can feel the goosebumps forming on my skin as I follow the trail with my eyes, seeing it go down the street until the second house and then into the yard. My pipe feels heavier in my hand and I raise it, hold it tight and ready to swing as I take cautious steps, avoiding the trail but following it. My heart’s beating so fast I can hear it in my ears like a torrent of water. Marco…Please don’t be at the end of this trail. Please…I need you.

The hedges around the house hide the yard but I round them and prepare to see a mutilated body just like all the others, except I expected to find freckles and tan skin on this one. And I do find my partner there, but the mutilated corpse lying on the front lawn isn’t his.

Marco is kneeling beside the mangled carcass lying on the grass, using a stick to prod and move the mess around while his bat lies by his feet. The body looks as though it was burst open like a firecracker, the rib cage torn wide open, flesh peeled back like some sick form of fruit. The body is missing its lower half, torn apart from the waist down, and I have to look around for it. It’s nowhere in sight and I swallow heavily at the likely idea that it was probably dragged to some other location or just eaten away. The head is gone, too, ripped off with part of the spine sticking out.

Coming closer, a chill courses through me as Marco continues to shift through the exposed and crushed organs that are left over and I swallow the urge to vomit. Instead, I clear my throat, something I regret since I feel a tiny bit of bile come out. It burns my throat but I focus more on Marco as he finally looks at me. He’s so calm, it’s almost disturbing. He almost looks like the Marco I first met. Yet at the same time, I can see the cracks in his head, deep and wide and spreading like a web, connecting together in their own kind of pattern too complex for either him or me to follow. I wonder if there's a way to fill those cracks, cover the canyons they're making and let Marco heal himself. 

I swallow heavily again my throat feeling uncomfortably dry, so much that it feels like the walls of my esophagus are sticking together like paste. Glancing at the carcass, I use my pipe to gesture at it while staring at Marco, "...You do that?" I know Marco is ruthless but this...this is beyond human capabilities. How could he cleanly sever a head and torso, dispose of the lower half, and rip open a human rib cage? Besides, the organs are practically a paste now and I'm sure some of them are even missing. Humans can't do that, especially not Marco. 

He takes one look at the body before shaking his head, his expression still composed, no grief or guilt to be found, "No. I found it like this. It's fairly recent though. Unfortunately, without the head and a complete torso, I can't make heads or tails on who it was, but I know it wasn't a human." My eyes widen when he says that and I instantly look at the corpse. This thing...it was a zombie yet something tore it apart? I hear Marco sigh and he nudges at a limp hand with his stick, turning it enough so I can see the back of it and see the paled and graying color along with the too-visible trail of veins, "See the skin? The color is a lot like an infected rather than a regular dead body. Because it was killed recently, if it had been human the skin wouldn't look like this, at least not right away. It takes at least three to six hours for the skin to even turn blue and go into rigor mortis. But this? This is beyond that." With the tip, he prods at the skin, "The skin has already begun having a leathery texture. And the organs? The few still inside are already rotting. It’s trapped between the first and second stages of decomposition, something that can take between 1 to 5 days.” Marco isn’t looking at me, but I’m staring at him, completely confused as to how he knows this much about dead bodies. That’s not information any normal person would know, unless they specifically searched the information but I can’t really know why anyone would look that kind of stuff up on Google. “I was a writer, Jean. We strive for accuracy.” He clears up my confusion without being asked and with a tone so casual that it’s like he’s talking about the weather. It just makes me more concerned for him.

For a while, we both just stand there in silence, staring at the remains and Marco occasionally poking at it. I occasionally glance away and let myself take in a sight less gruesome before turning back to Marco and his new…”specimen”. He’s occupying himself by prodding at the body and moving the mess around with slick sounds so disgusting it makes my stomach lurch. 

"I think another zombie is around. It's the only thing that could have done this." 

Marco may sound calm, but my whole body goes ice cold the moment I hear him say that. Another zombie? But Marco said this was recent, so that means- "Doesn't that mean that...it's still nearby?" My whole body is starting to shake. I don't think either of us can handle fighting another zombie. I don't even think I can handle being tackled by one again. I can still picture the face of the one that pinned me down days ago. The withered face, yellowed and rotted teeth dripping with drool, bloodshot eyes... I don't want to face anything like that again. I don't think I have the strength to even fight back again. Slowly, I glance at Marco and he's still as stoic as before, focused on the body but no longer prodding at it. Why isn't he scared? Why isn't he worried about meeting with another one of those monsters again? 

My questions remains unanswered, but I slowly notice that Marco's eyes aren't as void of emotion as I thought they were. I have to move closer to see, but Marco looks like he's more lost in thought than he is calm. Gears are turning in his head and I wonder what has him so troubled. What is he thinking about? I follow his stare and we both are now staring at the carcass on the lawn. Could Marco be thinking about this mess? Or my question? "Jean," His voice breaks the silence and I instantly turn to him even though he still hasn't turned toward me, "we should head back. If you're right, then we might want to avoid that other straggler as long as possible." He picks up his bat, and the stick in his hand gets tossed to the side, landing silently on the grass, "Besides...I need to do something back home." When he starts walking, he keeps his head down and I can still see the pensive look to his face, brows pinching together and a small frown pulling at his lips. The metal bat drags behind him like a heavy weight, creating a chain of loud noises that make me cringe internally. My paranoia spikes and I quickly move after him and take his bat away, holding it tightly in my hand. He looks at me with a questioning look. I only shake my head and keep walking, his bat and my pipe in my hands. Marco doesn't say anything after that. 

Karanese feels heavy around me the entire time we walk, my shoulders feeling as if something is squeezing them and pressing them down with the intention of crushing me into the ground. It almost makes me start walking slower, sluggish and weighed yet desperately attempting to carry the pressure around us. Whether it's my growing paranoia - my own little parasite that permanently inhabits my head - or actual tension in the city, Karanese no longer feels safe, not to me and maybe not to Marco either. We have to move on eventually, but our rations are still a little too large for us to carry onward, and leaving anything behind would be, as Marco has said before, a waste. We still have to last another week at the very least before making plans to move on. We already decided that we would be heading to the coast, though. That's our destination, for now. What will we do when we get there? Who knows, but it's better than living in the ever-growing depression and fear that's spreading all across the world now. Destinations, no matter how meaningless, give us purpose and they keep us moving, and as long as we are moving, the better chance we have of living. Living for what? It doesn't matter. We've survived this long, we can't let it be for nothing. 

We can't let out families be disappointed in us.

 

* * *

 

A long yawn comes out of me as I stretch on our blankets, my back arching with noisy and tense joints from the poor excuse of a bed. The pain has become surprisingly normal for me, even after just a few days here. I lay back against the pillows, basking in the warmth of the blankets, even though an occasional shiver goes through me which reminds me that these blankets aren't perfect but it's better than shivering on the cold wood floor. I stare up at the ceiling with the blankets drawn up to my nose, thinking of the past two days and the past five months. It all just seems so unbelievable that I still struggle to accept this as my new reality; that this is how my life is now. My life went from 6 classes and waiting for graduation to scrounging for food and killing to survive. This isn't the life that an eighteen year-old should be living, yet this is what it's become. This is normal for everybody, if anyone else is still alive. I shut my eyes and turn to my side, pulling my knees up until I'm just a small ball leeching warmth off of my own skin. 

After Marco and I came home, we silently went for the kitchen and had breakfast: another can of filling goods for me, and a couple bars of granola for Marco. We were both still depressed, still tired, and still weighed down, and our breakfast suddenly become less about fighting off hunger and more about us trying to use each other's company as our new chain into sanity. At least, that's how it felt to me. I was paranoid, fidgeting with my spoon and can as I sat on the counter. My heels kept banging against the cabinet under me and I know the sound was grating on Marco's nerves because I swear I saw his brows twitch once or twice but I just couldn't stop. My spoon shook whenever I fed him and for the first time he willingly stopped eating and leaned into it, accepting every spoonful I offered with no trace of a struggle. My shaking was making it hard though, and some bits would fall to the floor but neither of us said anything. Eventually, Marco just held my wrist every time I held out the spoon, his hand warm and gentle and his thumb would rub the underside of my wrist soothingly. The spike in my anxiety was soothed whenever his hand touched my skin, his warmth feeling like an entire blanket over my nerves. Whether my can of food did its job or I was finally wearing myself down, hunger eventually left and I insisted that Marco finish the last of it, and while he ate, I sat in silence. Marco stood between my legs and I eventually hooked my feet around his legs to keep him trapped, though it didn't look like he was planning on moving away any time soon.

 

When we finished breakfast, I think we both made a silent agreement that we needed sleep. Or at least, I needed sleep according to Marco. He didn't look tired, only thoughtful, with that crease between his brows still visible on his face. Like I did the other day, I reached up and pressed the pads of my thumbs against his forehead to force him to relax and I felt happiness wash over when he gave a breath of laughter, his lips curling into a small grin that had me smiling too. This small act of comfort and amusement was enough to make us both relax together and Marco only leaned further into my hands as I continued to rub at his forehead with small and gentle circles. We stayed close like this, just slipping into a faint sense of security far from our broken up world. Marco had his hands rested on my thighs and his warm fingers slid up and down a little, warming the space even more. It just felt...soothing to have Marco this close and this relaxed. I wanted things to be normal again. I wanted to know Marco outside of this disaster. What was he like before his poor mind was broken into fragments? What did he talk about and what did he love to do? Where was his favorite places to go to spend time, or where were his best memories from? I wanted to know Marco, but with his current state - and my own - he wouldn't be able to answer me properly. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't even remember what he was like before, just like how I can't remember what I was like.

Marco carried me upstairs when he said we should go rest. He slid his hands behind me and pulled me forward on the counter until I had my legs wrapped around his waist and my arms wound tight over his shoulders, and he lifted me off the counter so I could just hold on to him like a needy koala. I kept my face buried against his shoulder the whole way up, just stealing his warmth and indulging in his presence. "...We need to get you a bath, man." I mumbled against his neck and I could hear that breathy laughter that brushed against my neck and making my skin tingle in a way that makes me want to keep that gentle laughter going on and on, "'m not kidding. You fucking reek." Like blood and dirt and sweat. It's a scent that probably has pierced into his skin and probably mine as well. Without even a bar of soap, a shower is just minimizing the stench that sticks to us like glue until it eventually becomes a smell that can no longer be rubbed away without some real warm water and shampoo. The world is tainting us, staining us in ways we could never have thought possible. Luxuries that we always took for granted have been ripped away and only now does anybody realize just how damn good we had it before. 

Marco was so careful when he put me in bed, like I was a fragile object, crumbling in his hands and meant to be handled with care. I felt the way his fingers brushed along any exposed skin of my arms, the warmth they give off and the softness that I never knew he could possess making me feel like I was safe from everything. That was what Marco did best: He made this world seem like it was still okay. Or maybe I've become so broken that I've begun creating a false sense of safety in this Hell. I let him touch my skin, let his palms slide down my arms until they reached my hands where he tangled our fingers together. He was tying us together like this, tying me to him so he could bind us in reality a little more. I've realized that this is Marco's way of saying  _"You're okay, Jean. We're okay."_  and honestly, I appreciate that so damn much. I will never be able to express to him just how much this small bit of contact between us means to me. His callous thumbs rub at my knuckles before I finally squeeze his hands and let him go, just so I could wrap my arms around his neck and pull him down next to me so I can wrap him up in the blankets. 

That's another thing about Marco: He never cares about himself. He never lets himself rest until he knows I'm going down for the night. He never watches his back and instead he watches mine. He's only on high alert when I'm nearby and nervous and he gets sloppy when I'm relaxed. It contradicts his 5 months of survival and makes me wonder if he really did survive by fighting and not running. Sometimes I think that my sudden appearance caused his fragile mind to break and he's struggling so hard to keep his pieces together just so he won't scare me. Well, if I had to be honest, Marco does scare me, in so many ways. I'm afraid that he'll turn on me, he'll become blind with his insanity and grief and hurt me on accident. I'm afraid that his pieces will slip from his grip and shatter into bits so small that he can no longer figure out which piece goes where, like an impossible puzzle where the image has been blurred and scratched beyond recognition. I'm afraid that he'll give up, he'll lay down and accept death as something that he can't escape and will ultimately face. 

We were facing each other, eye to eye, and Marco was clutching at the edge of the blankets, nervously rubbing at it with his thumb. His eyes flickered this way and that, reading me but not in the way he usually does. He's skimming, frantically running his eyes like he's staring at my pages and trying to find a word or phrase but he just can't find it and it scares him. Maybe he could find it if he was okay. And Marco needs to be reminded that  _he's okay._  I held his face in my hands and his eyes immediately came to a halt, locking in on mine as if my touch just halted those gears in his head. 

"You're okay, Marco." 

I said it simply and quietly. I traced my thumb over his freckled cheeks and I pulled myself so close to him that I could almost feel the way his heart was slowly falling into a calmer and steadier rhythm. I let our foreheads touch, our noses brushing together, and I watched the way his eyes fluttered closed and he gave a sigh that seems to carry the weight that he's been shouldering all this time. We know he has to pick that weight up again eventually but for now he's letting his shoulders rest, he's letting himself breathe air that's not strained and allows his lungs to expand to their fullest. Marco was visibly melting into relaxation and it made me feel relieved. This was the Marco I wanted to see. No matter what it takes, I'll help Marco carry his pieces, just like he helps me carry mine. We're a team. 

That's how we fell asleep, close together and with matched heartbeats. I could feel Marco's breath feathering against my lips, a slow and even pattern that proves he's fast asleep. I don't need to peek to know. There's this thing about Marco where you can feel the kind of vibe he's giving off. When he's fired up and angry, you can feel the air getting warmer, like the fire inside him is burning out of his core and into the world. When he's anxious and jittery, eyes looking left and right for any threats, you feel it too. You feel tension in the air that's so thick and heavy you have to wade through it. When he's relaxed and at peace, just like he is now, you can't help but be relaxed too. It's like when water settles down, the waves easing until they lazily sink and rise as if lulled into sleep. Marco controls the air around him, he is always in control in some way. The natural leader.

As I lay in our bed now, I shake my head to rid myself of the thoughts and put my attention on the fact that I'm here alone. Again. It's like deja vu, finding Marco gone and not knowing where he went. Tension forms in my gut and I worry that he's gotten himself into trouble again. Immediately, I get up, get myself together and rush downstairs, ready to go charging back outside to look for my freckled partner. My pipe is in my grip and my gun is safely tucked into my back pocket this time. I'm ready for anything-

"They're acting differently than normal. That's not what they're supposed to do, right?"

I don't even grasp the front door's knob before I come to a stop, hearing the hushed words in the living room. It's like rapid murmuring, like a secret is being mumbled. Even under this safe roof, I feel every nerve in my body go into high alert as I inch into the living room, my steps light just as they always are when Marco and I are scoping the outside world.

I don't know if I'm relieved or worried when I find the source of the mumbling. Marco's pacing left and right, head down and teeth gnawing away at his fingers. He's mumbling through his fingertips and his free hand is motioning in the air, making strange gestures to go with his murmurs. I take a look at him and he's physically unharmed, but the way he's just moving around and talking to himself has me worried that Marco has completely slipped from my grasp. Has his mind finally collapsed under the trauma? Has he let his growing insanity get to him? Cautious, and a little afraid, I put my pipe down, rest it against the wall, and take two steps into the room. It's enough to get his attention. Marco's on high alert; I can feel his buzzing energy in the air. He freezes up completely but then sighs like he's relieved. Was he so lost in his mumbling that he actually let his guard down? 

I fidget in my spot for a moment, glancing away from Marco. He's gone back to gnawing at his fingers, looking left and right. It's making  _me_  paranoid, honestly. He's like some hyped up rodent that's being taunted by a cat. He's too wired right now, too high-strung. I need to get him down to a normal level of emotion. I take a slow breath of air, hold it, and then slowly let it out before I look back to my partner again, "Is...Everything okay?" 

As if a trigger has been pulled, Marco's head snaps up and he looks at me, startled at first, but his face slowly fades into a look of realization, with wide eyes and slightly parted lips that have been pressed to the tips of his fingers. His stare makes chills crawl up my spine for a second. It's like he just found the answers to whole damn universe in me and he's about to squeeze them out of me like juice from a lemon. I nearly fall back when he suddenly steps forward and takes a hold of my arms in a tight grip and he shakes me a little, "You've seen them out there, haven't you?" His voice is so quiet and I feel the words brushing against my lips as he's leaning into me. 

"W-What?" I am so confused it's almost scaring me. 

Before I can question more, Marco pulls me with him, still holding my arms. At least it isn't hard enough to hurt. He pushes me down until I'm sitting on the floor and he immediately drops to his knees in front of me, hands moving away from my arms so they can hold my hands. He's still smiling and looking like he struck gold with me and he scoots closer, knees sliding against the floor in a way that I'm sure would hurt if it were being done by anybody who wasn't named Marco Bodt. I feel him squeeze my hands and I look into his wide and unusually bright eyes. "Jean." He says my name is a way that is meant to catch my attention, "You spent...five months traveling right?" Since I doubt he'll actually listen to my words, I nod my head instead, "So, you actually saw these things around, right?" This does very little to clear things up. 

I swallow down the lump in my throat and my eyes nervously glance away. I just can't look at his eyes right now. I can practically see his cracked sanity and I'm honestly scared that it's breaking right now. The last thing I want to see is Marco falling to pieces in front of me, "Wh...What do you mean?" 

"I mean, you saw the way these zombies act. Are they feral? Are they sane? Do they show intelligence? What did they do when you saw them?" The amount of excitement in Marco's face should  _not_  even be there. He's asking me about those monsters. The monsters that not only killed possibly every person in the world by now but also my family and his. He shouldn't  _be_  happy about asking me these things. 

"Marco..." I sound so small as I say his name; so pathetically small, and so pathetically scared, "Marco, are you okay...?" My voice wavers just slightly, shaking with the obvious uneasiness and fear that I can feel creeping into my entire being. Marco knows I'm scared. Is it wrong that I feel just a little bad when Marco's twisted joy slowly disappears? His smile crumbles piece by piece until he looks not only sad, but also realizing just how off he's been sounding this whole time. No matter how disturbed Marco is, I don't like seeing him lose his smile. I need that smile, but this one is too sick, too twisted to be the smile I really  _want_  from Marco. I want him to genuinely smile. Instead, he stares at me with that sad look. Slowly - hesitantly - I reach out to hold his hand, "Marco. It's okay. I-" 

"What we saw today wasn't the way those monsters usually act." Marco cuts me off, my hand freezing midway to him, and without his smile and disturbed expression he's back to looking on the edge of serious, just like the Marco I first dealt with, "Remember how I said that body wasn't a human, it was one of them?" Like before, I nod silently, and Marco sighs and shifts until he's sitting down in front of me, his legs crossed in front of him, "Well...didn't you wonder why they would kill their own kind? And I  _know_  only they could do it because no human could tear off a head and torso like that, not even me. It was  _torn_  off, Jean. The spine was completely severed. Humans can't do that, at least not without a powerful weapon and I'm pretty sure a chainsaw isn't available right now." His brows knit together and he leans forward a little as he stares at me, "Don't you think it's odd that they would do that? To their own kind?" 

Maybe I didn't think about those questions at the time because all I was thinking about was the fact that neither of us are in stable condition. I was more worried about Marco and about trying to keep the contents of my stomach down while he played with his new toy. I wasn't really trying to make sense of the situation because to me all this world is anymore is blood and guts and tears and screaming. There is no logic to anything anymore. There isn't any reason to try and analyze situations. All we know is fight, flight, or freeze, the three natural instincts of the human race. But apparently, Marco still has enough sanity to be able to think about such details. Maybe the one who's really losing their mind is me... "So," I pause and try and run over everything he just said, "What do you think? I mean...does it really matter? We still have to fight to survive." Does it really make much of a difference to us if these monsters attack themselves next? 

"Jean, these things weren't attacking themselves in the beginning. They're changing." Something sparks in Marco, something in his eyes that seems to bring a strange form of life in him. Though, I think the idea that this conversation is sparking life in Marco should be a cause for concern. I watch as he chews at his lip for a moment, his eyes glancing away from me, "I think...I think they're becoming smarter. Somehow." 

"'Smarter' how?" From where I stand, attacking each other isn't a sign of intelligence. It just makes me think they're even dumber than they are now and aren’t able to tell the difference between one of their own and one of us. 

"Think about it, Jean." Marco's eyes come back to me, staring me down with that spark. The spark of someone trying to analyze a situation from every possible angle he can, "These zombies eat to survive. They're functioning on the primal human instinct of needing to feed. Before, they were savage. They were hungry and acting on primal urges. Sloppy and aggressive and mindless." That alone reminds me of the last close encounter I had. He's right. When I was being held down by that thing two days ago, it had no plan. It just wanted to eat. It wanted to bite me, to feed off of my own body. It wanted  _blood_. "They're different, now, Jean. This time, they attacked their own kind. They're fighting for survival, just like us." I look to Marco and express my confusion with a raised eyebrow and a deep frown. Fighting for survival? Like us? Marco licks his lips, silently thinking his response over before he inches just a little closer to me, "Jean. What will happen when there are no more humans for them feed on? What will they do?" What will they-? "We're not an infinite source of food supply to them. People will either become one of them or be eaten." 

Everything then clicks in my head. I know what he meant when he said they were getting smarter. Maybe they can't speak or think as logically as a human being, but they're gaining enough sense to understand reality, to come to realizations that feral creatures likely don't. And it scares the shit out of me. I mumbled my realizations out loud, "...They're fighting over food supply." As odd as it sounds, we share something in common with these monsters: We're all fighting for food. We're fighting for survival. 

Marco slowly nods, knowing that I've got most of what he said figured out, "That's right. They're getting hungrier. They're advancing in logic and they're figuring out that there's nowhere near enough humans to sustain them all. If they're really attacking us out of hunger, then starvation will soon kick in. And when a creature gets hungry..." 

"They fight for their meal. They fight tooth and nail until they're either dead or satisfied." I can already see the next zombie that we'll likely face. Hungry, savage, and desperate. It won't stop, it won't give up, until either we die or it dies. The reality of this makes me shiver, my body visibly quaking with the fear that shoots through me, "...What do we do?" I feel like a child. A child who is so desperate for comfort and reassurance that I look to Marco with a miserable expression. I just want him to tell me something that can help us. Anything.  _Please_ , Marco. To my disappointment, Marco looks about as miserable and hopeless as I do. We're both so tired, the strain of our situation dragging us down like dead weight. We can't keep carrying all this stress, this heavy weight of survival. We're just so  _tired_. 

Marco's hands slowly grab mine, sharing their warmth with me and I do everything I can to focus on that warmth. Focus on every little callous on his palms. Count each twitch of his fingers and time how long it takes for the warmth to make our palms sweaty. Think about Marco, being beside Marco.  _Focus_. 

"...We can't stay here, Jean." 

My hands tighten, holding on tighter to his hands, trying to hold on to him as if I'm clinging to shred of potential peace that I almost grasped. My body trembles again and I squeeze my eyes shut in denial, "Please..." My voice sounds so small, a pathetic little whimper, " _Please_ , don't say it..." I know what he's going to tell me. We've discussed it once before. 

"We have to leave Karanese." 

This isn't home. This isn't safety. This isn't warmth from the comforters and pillows in my bed. This isn't the smell of breakfast in the morning with a mug of warm coffee. This isn't laughter and arguing between siblings and coddling from mothers. This is Karanese. This is a dead zone and we need to survive, even if it means taking on the wide open world and the starving beasts that inhabit it. 

This is where we need to accept that we need to move on. 

 

* * *

 

Dinner is cold but my body is warm. I spend the entire meal sitting with Marco in a corner of the kitchen, my body curled up with my side against his chest. His arm is around me and he holds me close, and I realize that I feel protected. I feel unexpectedly safe. As grim as the air feels, it's still warm around me and I leech from this warmth with greed. Marco doesn't say anything, and he doesn't comment or complain when I press my face to his chest after I set my emptied can down. I can hear his heart beating, steady and calm, a sound that relieves me. He's relaxed, and when Marco is relaxed then we're safe. We're okay. His heart beat is also a reassurance that he's still with me, he's still breathing and I can still hold on to him. I'm not alone as long as Marco is with me. 

"You want me to carry you upstairs again?" His murmured words blow against my hair and I feel the warmth of his hand brushing down until he rubs at my side, slow and calming, "You look pretty comfortable there but we'll freeze if we spend the night down here." It's already getting cooler outside, abnormally cool for September, but I've never experienced Karanese weather. For all I know, this could be normal for this city. 

I take a second to enjoy Marco's warmth a little longer, my eyes closing and head tilting so I can rub my cheek to his chest, "I'll get up in a sec." I should get up, but my brain doesn't seem to be motivated enough to send the signal to my legs and commanding them to move. Instead, all I do is nestle further against my human heater. He laughs quietly, and I end up laughing along with him, the sound tickling my ear and rumbling through my head. It's like a comforting hum, reverberating off the walls of my ear until it settles straight into the core of my skull. His laugh is already so nice and nearly infectious, but from where I'm sitting now, it just seems ten times as effective. I want to hear it again and again. 

"Okay, Wheatgrass. Let's go." 

My legs still refuse to move, but Marco moves under me anyway, and I start to try and worm away so he can stand up, but to my surprise, his hold on me tightens and he guides me up with him until I'm stumbling on my unprepared feet. His arm stays around me, though, and he squeezes a little before I feel my feet slowly being swept out from under me. The least manly yelp comes from me and I instantly throw my arms around Marco's shoulder, "Marco- What-!?" 

"Relax. Just carrying you to bed, princess." I feel my face getting warmer at his words. Jerk. I hide my face against his shoulder just to keep him from seeing my red face as he carries me to the stairs. "You're still in the light side, Wheatgrass. Do I need to fast a little longer just so you can gain more weight?" My hand curls into a fist and I lightly hit his chest with the side of it, a small threat to his commentary that only serves to bring up another light-hearted laugh, "You're going to have to hit harder than that if you want to take me down." 

"Shut up, Freckles." I don't bother looking up, knowing that he has his dumb smile on his face. I just stay in my little hiding place against his shoulder, listening to his steps as we go upstairs. Unfortunately for me, once our conversation comes to a halt, my thoughts start cranking up questions and doubts, planting seeds to grow an orchard of paranoid and hesitation inside my mind. I can't be left in silence. It's dangerous and it lets all kinds of toxic parasites into my brain, ruining me even more even when I thought it wasn't possible. The problem with all this doubt is that I'm not the only one who feels it when the silence spreads. 

"Everything okay?" Marco's voice vibrates near my ear and my fingers curl around his shirt, a tight and slightly shaky grip that tells him that no, everything is  _not_  okay. He sighs and I can feel his movements becoming smoother, signaling that we're past the stairs and heading for our room, "Jean. What's wrong?" Marco can always feel when there's something off in me. He can feel when something is off in general. I wonder if that's how he's always been. 

My nose is still buried against Marco's shoulder but I feel less warm now. I feel colder, slightly exposed like when the winter air hits my skin through a hold in my jacket. A window has opened around my peaceful warmth and is letting in the chill of reality and I can't help but shiver in Marco's arms. Reality isn't gentle to us anymore. "Do you think we're going to be okay...?" Marco stops completely and I can't tell if we're in our room or if he just stopped in the hall. His fingers twitch against me and I can almost hear the gears in his head groaning as he tries to find an answer for me. Please, Marco, don't sugar coat anything to me. I need the truth... 

Marco doesn't say anything, though. In fact, all I hear is his gentle sigh that brushes against my ear, making me squirm just a bit, and his hands slowly slide off my body and he lets me slide out of his grip until I'm back on my feet beside our bed. His hands don't let me go, one hand continuing to hold my shoulder and he stands close to me, making me look up just to see his expression. Those lines have formed on his forehead again. I can tell he's thinking hard about this, and I don't like it. I never like it when Marco thinks too much. I reach up to rub his skin with the pads of my thumbs like I always do, but my wrists get caught by his hands, holding me still, and I'm worried. Marco's never stopped me before, he's always laughed and allowed me to rub his forehead. Now, he looks serious, more serious than ever before. It makes a knot form in my stomach. His name starts to form on my tongue, the ' _M_ ' rolling off my lips, but Marco's hand suddenly releases my shoulder and comes to rest on the back of my head, his fingers brushing through the grown out undercut. I stop trying to talk and I get a little overwhelmed as Marco leans in close. His other hand rests on my hip and I hold my breath completely as he brings our foreheads together, noses touching lightly. I can almost hear my heart pounding in my chest. "Marco...?" I barely whisper his name but I know he heard me. I practically whispered his name against his own mouth. 

He sharply breathes in and I almost shiver from the look in his eyes. Determination, passion,  _fire_. Marco's small candle inside his body is glowing vibrantly for the first time since I've met him, and I admit that I love the sight of it. Marco's alive and his fire isn't snuffed out yet, and that's all I want to see in him. I need to be sure that my only partner in this world is still fighting with me and that I won't lose him the same way I lost mom and Hitch. His lips purse together into a tight line and his eyes flicker slightly, searching for something inside of me, before he parts his lips, "Do you trust me?" Confused, I just stare at him, not sure what he's asking me, and I let my confusion be known in my stare. Again, Marco parts his lips and takes a small breath, "Do you...trust me?" Marco...How can you even ask me that? How can you assume that I  _don't_  trust you? I wonder, is he still bothered by what happened at that house? Does he still blame himself or feel guilty about lashing out at me? Never once did I think that he wasn't trust worthy. Yes, I admit, I sometimes am afraid of him, but it's never been enough to shatter the trust I hold for him. I slowly nod, with no hesitation or sign that I'm forcing my answer. I let him know that yes, I trust him, and yes, I'll probably always trust him. He seems content with that and he gently scratches my undercut, a soothing action that makes me relax, "Then...understand that I will never hurt you. I- ...I'll never hurt you, or let anybody hurt you." 

Without even hesitating, I bring my hands up and cup his face, running my fingers across his jaw, tracing the small scar on his cheek with my thumb. His eyes close and I take a second just to nudge our noses closer and there's a small sigh that brushes across my lips. I can't help but smile when I practically feel Marco leaning further into me, the hand on the back of my head sliding down until both of his arms are around my waist. I slide one of my hands back until I can gently comb my fingers through the short hairs on the back of his head, feeling around until I can rub my fingers gently across the scar laying there. I hear his relaxed sigh, the way his muscles slowly loosen until I have him nearly melting in my hands. I can hear a low, almost purring sound and I can't help laughing, still rubbing the scar and occasionally scratching his scalp. His eyes are still closed and I inch closer and closer until I can guide his head down so he can rest against my shoulder, which he does so willingly, arms now wound fully around my waist. Without pausing my hands, I turn my head enough to kiss the side of his head, just a light peck, before I bring my lips down to his ear, "I know you would never hurt me, Marco. I know." He trembles a little in my arms but I'm not sure if it's from my whispering in his ear or because he's about to cry again, so I just hold him a little tighter, "I trust you. Nothing can change that, Marco." 

"I'll never hurt you, Jean...I promise." 

I can't help frowning at how small he sounds. Marco should never sound that small. Never so broken. I don't want Marco to be afraid of himself. He isn't someone to fear, he's just...damaged. "You're not a monster..." I said it before I could stop it. Marco tenses under my hold and I can feel him starting to pull away, but my arms tighten around him, holding him in place and not letting him go, "You're  _not_  a monster." I repeat it more firmly this time, like I'm trying to drill this fact into his skull, "Don't you ever feel or think otherwise, Marco. I won't let you." I will never let him go around believing that he's a danger to me, to this fucked up world around us. 

Marco has an almost painful grip around me, like a python attempting to break my bones, ready to devour me. He's shaking like a leaf now and I can feel something damp forming on my shoulder. I've never been very good with comforting people, even before all of this happened, and I don't know what the right thing to say or do with Marco, so I do what we came up here to do. Without letting him go, I try to give the message that I want us to lay down, gently tugging him until he finally comes down with me, until we can kneel down and slowly crawl into our only comfortable spot. I lead Marco along by the collar of his shirt as I lie back until I'm flat on my back with him hanging over me, my hands hooked together behind his neck. We don't even bother getting undressed this time. We just need to let ourselves crash at this point. His eyebrows are drawn together, creating a crease across his forehead. Quietly, I mumble to him, "You're going to get wrinkles," before I reach up and rub my thumbs on his forehead, smoothing those creases out and causing my freckled friend to close his eyes again. 

"We need to leave Karanese soon..." I can't help but curse a little in my head as he brings that up. I know we have to move on, I just didn't want it to be this soon. "If we stay here, we'll just be sitting ducks. If we keep moving, then at least we can last a little longer. Find more shelter, food, and maybe...maybe even other people." Don't do this to me, Marco. We can't get our hopes too high. We can't bring ourselves up only to be crushed by disappointment. "I know that shit looks bad for us right now, Jean. But I promise, everything's going to be okay." Marco's eyes look softer than ever now, staring into mine with a look that almost begs for me to believe him, "No matter what happens, I'll make sure that everything is okay for the both of us." He doesn't realize that he's already made it better for me. He's already made things "okay" by taking me in and letting me leech off of his rations. 

"Marco," Running one hand through his hair, I get his attention on me and brush his bangs from his face, "trust me when I say that you've already made everything closer to 'okay'. For five months I practically dragged myself along, walking for miles with nobody to even tell me that it'll be okay. I thought that I would lose my mind at some point, or I'd be eaten by one of them. And yet here I am, and you've done so much for me." Cupping his face, I smile at him and try to express the appreciation I feel in it, "You're already made me feel like things will be okay, Marco. Meeting you helped me find the strength to keep living..." Marco shifts above me and slowly sinks down until his body covers mine, our size difference making him cover me like a blanket. I end up laughing at the way he just settles down into me like I'm his personal mattress and my quiet laughter bubbles into loud chuckles as he nuzzles into my neck, "M-Marco!" I can feel his lips curling into a smile against my skin. Little brat. 

Hands rest on my sides and give me a light squeeze, tickling me enough to make me jump and try to shove him off. I don't succeed in pushing him, but he laughs, and I end up wrapped up in his arms. This is quickly becoming my favorite place to be. I don't hesitate to snuggle up to my freckled partner, and he responds by rolling into his side and bringing me with him. We lay in silence for a while, my head against Marco's chest, listening to his steady heartbeat, and Marco resting his chin on top of my head, his hands rubbing my back and sides in slow circles. I almost find our mood rather laughable. We were so miserable just minutes ago. Maybe everything that has happened has made us so twisted that emotions don't even function normally for us anymore. We don't feel things like normal people anymore. Normality is gone, stripped from us entirely. 

"For the record," Marco mumbles against my hair, his lips touching my scalp and I can feel the way they move to form the words, "You keep me sane, Jean. I'm glad you showed up that day, because...I swear, I was on the verge of total insanity." Slowly, I look up at him, concerned and almost scared at the thought of him being so close to losing his mind. Marco stares at me with a calm expression before he slowly cracks a smile and brushes my hair back, "Yeah...I was way more screwed up than I am now. But you managed to show up in time to fix me up. You saved me, Jean, even if you don't believe it." He leans down and I feel him press his lips to my forehead, my face getting warm from it. He holds the kiss for a few seconds before pulling away and brushing his lips further down my face. I shiver a little, feeling him brush down my nose, brushing against the tip, and I almost flinch because I feel the feather light contact against my own mouth. "Thank you, Jean..." The words are practically breathed into my mouth, still just a centimeter away from my lips, "Thank you for saving me, and for reminding me that I haven't lost it yet. Just-...Thank you." 

When I met Marco, I never expected to feel anything for him. Not care, not concern, and definitely not...this. When I met Marco, I figured we would be nothing more than temporary companions before I was released back into the world. I expected him to feed me for a day and then throw me out. I expected him to tell me that he wouldn't protect my sorry ass. Instead, Marco welcomed me into his hideaway. He shares his food, even sacrifices his share for me. He protects me, guards me with his life, and vows to keep me safe until its safe again, even though such a promise would be one he has to keep until the end of our lives, because when will this nightmare ever end when humanity has already lost? And then suddenly, Marco was so much more than just another survivor. He was my partner, my friend. I know that what I'm about to do next is wrong, I know that maybe I'm just going to be acting on the basic need for affection, and I know that whatever I feel for Marco probably isn't what I think it is, but fuck it all. Fuck it. I need this...And I hope to God that Marco won't hate me when he realizes that this may not even be what I nor he thinks it is. 

Against any better judgement I may still have, I let my eyes close and I close that very small gap between us, pressing my lips against his in a very soft and simple kiss. I feel his lips pressing back against mine, keeping it simple but returning it none the less. His hands stay still on my sides and mine have ended up flat against his chest. We break apart but we're still just a breath away from another kiss. We don't take it, though. I don't know if Marco is thinking the same way I am about what we just did. Maybe he is and he just wants to avoid letting ourselves think that we're really feeling anything for each other. Part of me really hopes that he considers the fact that we're both screwed in the heads, and that all of this is just us looking for comfort, for affection that we may never get from anybody else again. We're just...using each other, even though that sounds rather wrong to say. I'd never use Marco, but...I don't want to let myself assume that I feel anything for this guy that I met just two days ago. Trauma has a funny way of twisting a person's thoughts and emotions, after all. 

I snuggle back against Marco's chest, and he goes back to resting against my head. I pull the covers over us and we leech heat from each other. I don't know what's going to happen next. We have to leave Karanese, and who knows what we'll find after this. I'm scared, but what else can we do? Marco was right. We're sitting ducks here, and eventually more of those zombies will show up, and they'll be hungrier than ever before. We need to move, and we need to move fast. And...Who knows, maybe we  _will_  find other people out there. Maybe... If not, then at least we can enjoy the ocean together. We can see it together and...We’ll figure something out from there. Somehow. We'll survive as long as we stay together. 

_"No matter what happens, I'll make sure that everything is okay for the both of us."_

 

* * *

 

September is ending. November is coming on and I don't really know what we'll do after this. The pantry's been emptied, our blankets have been folded up and stuffed away into one backpack that I'm carrying while the last of our food is piled into another pack that Marco carries. (I'm not dumb, he took the bag with food because it weighs more.) We've done another sweep across the street, went through the rubble of homes with a fine toothed comb, and taken whatever seemed useful - which wasn't very much. I stashed every little bullet that still seemed usable, keeping count of every single one and always setting one aside. Just one. There was a moment where I considered setting aside two of them - two lonely bullets that somehow carried more weight in them than anything else in the world - but I quickly shook my head. I refuse to set that kind of path for Marco. I refuse to set up that kind of weakness for him. I may be enough of a coward to consider suicide, but Marco...I won't give him that kind of weakness. If either of us is going to be the strong one, it's going to be Marco. 

Karanese is nothing more than just another crossed off mark in the world. It's not a city, it's a shell, emptied of everything except for two lone survivors who have leeched its last remaining resources like parasites. We're parasites. We have no choice but to move from place to place, sucking out what little life is left in the places we go. What will we do when we run out of places to go? The world is finite, and just like the zombies, we too will run out of food at some point. Zombies can feed on any flesh, our food expires, perishes and leaves us sick and hungry if we even dare to swallow it down. When we run out of food, will we starve to death? Or will that be the day we finally lie down and let our bodies be devoured? Will I use this last bullet to end my miserable life, and leave Marco to himself? 

_'No. You will **not**  abandon Marco.' _

I will  _not_  abandon Marco. I repeat this like a mantra in my head, over and over again, because I  _refuse_  to abandon him. He's lost everything in his life, just like I have, and the last thing he needs is to find my sorry ass dead with a bullet in my head. If we die...We'll die together. As dark as that sounds, what else can our outcome be? If we don't get eaten, then we'll starve. We'll freeze. We'll break our own damn bones trying to survive. We'll go completely insane. There is no positive outcome for us anymore, there is only trying to stay alive. 

It's at the end of September that we stand together at the city limits of Karanese, early in the morning despite the chilly air, wanting to get as much of a head start so not a single minutes is wasted. Karanese's sign reads a warm greeting and its current population. The sign has been torn down, bent and broken and leaning to one side, not greeting anybody and instead wishing whoever passes a sad goodbye. We haven't really talked much about this, only acknowledged that it was going to happen soon. Standing here, I hold Marco's hand in mine, our fingers laced, not in an act of affection, but of support. I have an iron grip on Marco's hand, probably hurting him but he never says anything. I've been clinging to his hand in a vice grip since we walked out of the house, refusing to let him go, and he never pushed me away. I think he knows how scared I am. Maybe he's scared too. Either way, we walk out of Karanese hand in hand.

Since our first kiss we've traded many more. Never more than just a peck but we have kissed so many times since. When we wake up in the mornings after a night of torture in our dreams, he leans over me and kisses me in a gentle way that always said  _'it's okay, we made it through another night'_. When we'd eat together, Marco would stand between my legs while I sat on the counter and between bites of food where I'd feed him my share, we'd lean in and kiss again. We'd stay together for a few seconds, like taking a breather before we pulled back and went back to our meals. Marco even began training me, letting me join his workouts and helping me get strength back into my weedy body. He'd never push me to keep up with him, but he'd definitely test my limits. When I did well, he'd reward me with a smile, verbal praise of  _'good job'_ , and a warm kiss to my cheek or lips. And I can't deny that I would be tempted to grab his hands and kiss those quarter sized spots on the inside of his elbow. I wanted to kiss the scar that traced his spine, the claw marks that marked his chest, I wanted to give him some kind of praise for living with these marks, because I know there's something behind them. There's a story etched on Marco's body and he carries its weight in silence. I never let myself to kiss them, though. I always settle for kissing the scar on his right cheek, kissing his freckles that scatter across his nose, the chapped and bloody lips of his, or scratching that scar on the back of his head. That's my way of telling Marco  _'You've done great so far. I'm proud of you'_  and I hope he's getting my message. Whatever we have between us, it's not love. It isn't romance. We're in no position to think we're capable of feeling such emotions toward each other. We're just comforting ourselves, holding our pieces together so we can last just a little more. The soft sighs and warm kisses are the glue that are slowly bringing our pieces together again. 

"Are you ready?" 

My throat swells closed when Marco speaks up, and I have to try so hard to not shake my head and beg him to take us back home, where we set up our bed and lay huddled under our blankets and pretend that we're still safe. I have to try so hard to not start crying here and now, to not collapse to my knees because  _I'm not ready_. I don't want to face the world yet. I just want to go home. I swallow heavily, tasting those words going down my throat, before forcing my head to nod. "I'm ready." I don't sound ready. My voice breaks, the words shake, and Marco squeezes my hand as best he can under my bone shattering hold. He's telling me that he's here and he won't let me go at it alone. Unfortunately, it doesn't do very much to comfort me. I'm scared shitless. 

"Jean." Marco somehow manages to pry his hand free from my hold and he pulls me by my arm until I'm facing him. There's no worry on his face, not even a single crease from a frown or from his usual thoughtful expression. Marco's calm, confident, and brave; he is my polar opposite. His calloused hands cup my face and I'm forced to hold eye contact with his warm brown eyes, my hands loosely grabbing at the edge of his shirt. I always like to compare those eyes to the comforting hot chocolate my mom would always make for me whenever I had a shit day: Sweet, warm, and capable of calming every buzzing nerve in my body. His thumb brushes against my cheekbone and he brings our foreheads together, noses touching, and for some reason, I feel like I'm able to breathe. It's like he's giving me clean air so I don't suffocate. And maybe I steal the air from him as he brings our lips together in one brief kiss and then one more kiss, our parting just slightly for the first time. It's wet, but I oddly feel like he just gave me fresh air in that kiss. He shared something with me, or maybe that's just my imagination. When he pulls away, he keeps our lips touching, "We're going to be okay." he says to me and I managed to nod against his hands that still hold my face, "I promised I'd protect you, and that's what I'll do. We're going to be okay." I nod again, even if my stomach tightens with worry. Don't worry Marco, I'll be fighting too. I'll protect you, too.

Marco kisses me one more time, and I let myself enjoy it. I let my hands slide up his stomach to his chest, one hand laying directly over those long three scars while my other hand rests on his shoulder. It's the longest three seconds of my life, but as Marco pulls away, I feel his lips moving. He doesn't speak, but I know he said something, mouthed something against my lips but I didn't even catch what it was. Marco pulls back and his hands slide away from my face. "Come on. Let's go." I look down and his hand is being held out to me, palm up and waiting for me to take hold of it, "We're going together." Together. I'm not alone in this. I'm not fighting by myself. I have a partner, and we're going to protect each other until the end. Slowly, I lay my hand in Marco's and our fingers lace together without hesitation. I look at him and try to seem as determined as he is. Marco just smiles, a warm, comforting smile that probably can't keep the promises it's making to me, but I don't care anymore. Whatever lay ahead, we'll face it head on, until we reach the coast. Until then, our next destination is Ragako, a small town that will hopefully give us shelter for a while. After all, November is coming, and winter can be a brutal season. Even now, the cold hurts my skin and I'm actually afraid that I'll die half way across the country. Who knows how we'll die, but at least I know I won't be dying alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, how's it going, how long has it been? 
> 
> Sorry this took a while to update, but I've been struggling in school, dealing with some personal and emotional stuff, and most of my focus went to art and keeping myself in a more stable state of mind. I also started another fic which you may have seen called "Who Drowned Marco Bodt", so that took a bit of time to do. And I also am currently tangled up in about 3 different Secret Santa exchanges and one cosplay video which I have barely put a dent into, **SO** , sorry about all that.  
> Hope you all liked this new chapter. I probably didn't do much except give more info on some things. I'm sorry if this was not what you expected.  
> And of course, please check out ["Who Drowned Marco Bodt".](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5196437/chapters/11974826)
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at [vanitas-vanilla](http://vanitas-vanilla.tumblr.com/)/[vanitas--vanilla](http://vanitas--vanilla.tumblr.com/) or you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/VanthePapaya). Tumblr tag for this fic is "fic: manicnpanic".


	6. Rift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rift**   
>  _noun_
> 
> 1\. a crack, split, or break in something.  
> 2\. a situation in which two people, groups, etc., no longer have a friendly relationship

**Marco**

When we left Karanese, the sky was clouded and grey. For September, I figured that was normal since we left relatively early. Time isn't something I keep track of anymore (it's kind of hard to keep track of it when I don't have a phone or watch on me) and I've been trying to train myself into measuring the hour through the position of the sun. Hours, minutes, even seconds pass at distorted paces so I can't trust myself to measure how long we've been walking by that. Unfortunately, the sky hasn't cleared up but I know for a fact that we've been walking for more than two hours. (I just contradicted myself, yes, but from the way my own legs are aching I can tell that it's been a while). I've kept myself in good shape since I left Jinae, knowing fully well that I'd need to keep fit if I planned to fight and outrun these things, but even I have to admit I'm starting to get tired. The only thing that keeps pushing me on is the knowledge that if we don't reach Ragako by nightfall, our chances of survival drop even lower. Jean may not know much about these zombies, but I'm sure that even he realizes that they get more active at night. That's not how they were supposed to be, though.

I never told Jean, and I honestly never plan to, but I know more about these creatures than I let on. They're...a little closer to me than Jean would expect, but even if I wasn't connected to them it's not hard to understand their mannerisms. They're getting more active now, advancing in intelligence and logic. They're becoming more aware of themselves, just like I told Jean. Originally, they were meant to be more "human", in a sense. They would be active in the day and sluggish at night, an internal and instinctive clock like any other living creature on this planet, but apparently they've reversed these habits, or at least they've become more active at night than they normally are. My questions is: Why? Why be more active at night? Wouldn't there be less food at that hour? Or maybe their problem solving skills have bettered and they’re using the night as an advantage. Maybe, because food is stationary at night, they have come to believe that by traveling more at night they’re more likely to find easy to catch meals.

"I can almost hear the gears in your head turning. Something wrong, Freckles?"

Jean sounds a little too far behind for my comfort. Quickly looking back, I can see he's lagging behind more than just a few feet. We've been cutting through a field that should make a straight line to Ragako, and the brush comes up to our knees. I've been using my bat to pick around ahead of me just to avoid tripping or stepping on anything, since the last thing we need is for one of us to suffer a leg injury. Seeing Jean walking - or rather, stumbling - behind me makes me worry for him. The guy can be careless sometimes, and if I don't straighten him out, he could end up dragging us both down. "Worry less about me and more about yourself." Yeah, I'm a little too harsh with my words but the thought of losing time because Jean decided to not give two shits about where he's stepping puts me a little on edge. More than usual, that is.

"I'm fine, don't worry about me." That's what he says, but as soon as he finishes saying those words, I catch the sound of his foot snagging on something and he nearly topples over. I jerk forward with my arm out, ready to run forward to catch him but Jean's quick to recover and he holds up a hand to motion for me to stop, "I'm fine! Relax." Sure, Jean. A little trickle of irritation makes me bristle a little but I keep my mouth shut, instead watching as Jean stumbles through the overgrown grass until he's a foot away from me. He gives me a crooked and sheepish smile in an attempt to just have me laugh my worries off but it chips away when I keep staring at him with no amusement. As much as it stings to see his shred of joy literally fall from him, I can't let Jean be careless now. He leans in a little bit, brows twitching upward, silently asking me if something is wrong. I know he's worried about me, but I'm worried about _us_. I'm worried about _our_ survival, and he needs to understand that.

With one hand, I grasp the hem of Jean's shirt and pull him forward, making him stumble all over again but at least now I can steady him if he falls over. "Look, I'm sorry if I'm being a hard-ass right now but you need to consider the situation we're in, Jean." I pause for a second just to give him a moment to really consider what I'm going to say. The thing about Jean is that reality slips from him occasionally. Too much peace and he forgets exactly where we are and what's going on. I know because it's happened to me a lot. When nothing happens, we'll fall into a false sense of security and in our desperate attempt at blocking out the shit we've been through, we'll completely forget what's going on in this world. We'll forget everything and we'll become sitting ducks, completely wide open for those things to show up and eat us alive. I can't let Jean fall into that illusion, or I could end up having to protect us both. Even I have my limits. I take a breath and slowly let it out, "We're not in Karanese anymore. There won't be any shelter until we make it to Ragako, and that's going to take the rest of the day. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can find somewhere to hide and sleep, and we have to be careful. We can't risk anything, and neither of us can get hurt. Even a small wound can be enough to screw someone over." While I want to throw reality at him, I can't scare him completely. There's a fine line separating Jean's own sanity and if I press too hard into his wounds I could end up making him worse. I don't tell him that these things can smell blood from a mile away, maybe even more. I don't tell him that they can close in on us in just a couple of minutes if they catch even a whiff of our blood. I don't want to put that kind of paranoia into his head. If I even feed him enough information, he'll build his own thoughts and send himself into his own mental hell. We're both minefields and we have to tread carefully with each other, and with ourselves.

My hand keeps a hold of his shirt, rubbing the fabric, feeling how worn down it’s become. He doesn’t say anything to me, just staring off as if in a daze and I assume that he’s just thinking. As hard as I am on him, I don’t like the way his eyes are darkening, the way that honey color is losing its warm glow that makes their color seem as sweet as sugar. So I do what I think I should do and I lean down the couple of inches that separate us and brush my lips against his cheek, right under his eye, ready to put a soft kiss there in a desperate attempt to keep Jean from falling into another one of his dark pits. Before I can do much more than just a simple brush against his skin, I’m pushed back. Not enough to make me stumble but it’s enough to tell me that what I did was either wrong or unwanted. Jean’s staring up at me, those honey eyes now hard and a little cold. I’m confused until he steps back two steps, forcing my hands to let go of his shirt with a muffled snap.

“Well…Sorry for being such a burden on you.”

It’s been a long time since I felt anything other than fear or frustration. Jean knocks the wind right out of me with his words and he steps around me, walking with more confidence than ever before and hardly giving me a chance to even turn around to answer him, “Jean, that’s not what I said.” His response: A middle finger in the air right at me and a growing space between our positions. “Jean…”

* * *

 

**Jean**

 

I can feel the stinging around my eyes starting to piss me off the farther I walk. I don’t even look back at Marco before I rub my eyes furiously. Yeah, I’m stupid for even feeling the need to cry over something as small as being told I’m just extra weight on Marco’s back, but still…Still, it hurts. It fucking sucks. I really thought I was carrying my own this whole time. I thought I was finally being something other than added baggage. Instead, I have Marco always ahead of me and looking over his shoulder just to make sure I’m still walking, that I’m still on his tail and not trailing far behind like his damn pup. I’m not his partner, I’m just his charge. I’m a helpless child and he’s my guardian.

I don’t care how much space is between me and Marco now, I don’t care that he’s the one with the food, I don’t even care if he leaves in another direction for Ragako without even telling me. I don’t care anymore. Maybe being on my own will help me grow a backbone so I won’t need someone to save my ass whenever we’re attacked.

Fuck, I don’t even blame Marco for thinking I’m a burden. When have I proved to him that I’m competent enough to protect myself? Ever since we met – ever since this whole mess even started – I’ve done nothing but run and hide or come close to being bitten. Marco’s always been the one that fights those things. He has the ability to take them down, to face them with a little more confidence than I can. Even when he breaks and falls apart, he gets back up somehow and still faces them again and again, while I collapse under the weight of my own emotions and submit to these bastards like a pathetic dog. I may as well just lay down belly-up and let them tear me apart. At least then Marco can go on without being dragged down by me. As shitty as it is to even think of just…dying and leaving him alone, I get the feeling it’ll be easier on him.

The bag on my back seems a lot heavier to me now but I guess it must be my terrible mood pulling me down. I push aside some of the tall weeds in front of me with my pipe, keeping my eyes on the ground to avoid rocks or holes, just like Marco said. I honestly consider waiting until we’re at Ragako to slip away. I’ll take a small share of the food and go. Marco can handle himself, he’s been managing for months now. Cold air hits me and I try hard to not shiver. That reminds me, the colder seasons are coming up. Can I really leave on my own and survive that way? If it snows, will I be able to find shelter to survive the weather? Or maybe I’ll just die in the cold, buried beneath white powder and frozen. Better than being eaten alive. My gun is tucked away in my bag, unloaded. Marco thought it would be best to just avoid using it with how little bullets we have. Maybe I’ll leave it with him, better his chances of surviving. A dead man won’t need it after all.

I feel a charge in the air, enough that it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and a very uncomfortable wave course through me from my gut. It almost makes me feel nauseous, my stomach churning with the sudden discomfort. My heart skips a beat and I get that familiar feeling like something is behind me. That…paranoid sensation people get when they feel uneasy in an empty or dark room. It must be Marco, closing in on me just so he can make sure I’m safe, and I pick up my pace to avoid having him get too close. I don’t _want_ him guarding me. I don’t _need_ him to protect me. I can save myself if I get my ass into trouble. I’ll be _fine_.

“ _Agh_ -!”

I suddenly go face-first into the ground as something slams into my back. The wind gets knocked clean right out of me, my stomach is pressed against the dirt and my chest aches like hell from the fall. I thank whatever luck I have left that I didn’t slam my nose against the ground or else I would have a mess of blood all over my face. My pipe is still in my hold and I give another quick thanks that it didn’t pierce me in some way. Something is pinning me down, something heavy, and I doubt it’s a zombie or else I would be dead already. I twist as best I can with the weight on me, ready to chew the bastard out, “What the-” A hand presses against my mouth and silences me mid-sentence, but I can see who is practically laying on me like a painfully familiar blanket.

Marco leans over my shoulder, his lips pursed and eyes narrowed in warning. For a second I think he’s about to beat the shit out of me, until he leans down until I can feel his breath against my ear. From the way he’s panting, he probably sprinted right up behind me and just threw himself against my back. “Don’t say anything.” He whispers to me with his palm tightening around my mouth a little, “Don’t move and don’t say a word.” He shifts on top of me, squeezing out the little air I’ve managed to take in, and lifts himself off of me a bit but still remaining with his lips against my ear and his palm against my mouth, “Don’t get up but get ready to run as fast as you can. I need you to listen very closely and focus with me, Jean. Understand?” Against his grip, I nod, the adrenaline already rushing through me from the realization that danger is nearby. Marco’s giving off that electric buzz he always radiates with whenever he’s on high alert, signaling that something is definitely on our tails. The breath that meets my skin sounds like a very soft laugh of relief from Marco, “Good. Now, when I say to run – whether I whisper it or shout it – I want you to take off straight ahead. Don’t stop; don’t look back; don’t even _say_ anything. Just _run_. Keep going until you reach the first highway you see. Follow that highway to your left and don’t stop. It should take you straight to Ragako.” A knot forms in my gut as I listen to him. He’s telling me to go on, whether he comes with me or not. The very thought makes my eyes sting with tears. His hand slides away from my mouth but his arm winds itself around my shoulders, squeezing me as he presses a kiss against my temple. That kiss makes the knot twist even more and I can almost taste something bitter in the air, but Marco lets me go just as quick as he held me down and his weight lifts off of me.

I can hear the crunch of Marco walking – or crawling? – away from me but I keep my head facing forward. Slowly and cautiously, I raise myself up on my arms and knees a few inches, my legs tucking themselves under me so I’m in a better position to push myself up into a run. I stay as still as I can even though it’s uncomfortable, seconds passing by like hours. My knees are bent and supporting my weight, the joints practically screaming for me to straighten out but I refuse, knowing that I have to listen to Marco’s words. I can’t fuck this up any more than I already have. For once, I just want to do things _right_. No more dragging Marco down, no more screwing shit up. I won’t-

A loud, animalistic snarl and roar comes from behind, terrifying and chilling and enough to make me have to press my hand to my mouth just to suppress the startled cry that almost comes out of me. I’ve heard that sound too many times already and hearing it again is my nightmare made reality. My whole body shakes from the beastly noises but I keep listening for Marco. He said to wait. Wait until he tells me to run. _‘What if he’s hurt? What if that thing got him and he’s gone?’_ No, no, I can’t think that way! Marco wouldn’t let himself get hurt! Another inhuman screech comes from the monster feet away from me and this time my body almost pushes itself up just to get away from it.

“ **Run, Jean!!** ”

I’m suddenly on autopilot and my arms push me right to my feet the moment I hear Marco shout at me. Like every other time, I run away from the monster that scares me. Marco’s behind me. I know he is. We’ll outrun it together and we’ll make it to Ragako. I’ll make sure he’s okay and we’ll make up and we’ll go back to curling up under our blankets together. I’ll kiss the cut on his cheek and the prints on his arm and the scars on his chest; I’ll kiss every single one. We just have to make it to Ragako. We have to make it. We _will_ make it. Together.

“Keep running! Don’t stop and don’t look back!”

I’m already gasping for air but I still let a sharp exhale of relief at the sound of Marco’s voice behind me. He’s okay. We’re fine. We just keep running and everything will be fine. Marco is coming up behind me, I can hear him panting as much as I am as he tried to keep going. He’s doing better than I am, easily catching up and easily starting to go past me. I let myself glance at him and do a quick double take at the sight of the blood on his shirt, “Marco! You’re bleeding!” Fuck, did he get bitten?! Is he going to turn into one of those things?!

“I’m fine, it’s not my blood! Just keep going!” He doesn’t look at me, but I can believe his words. He’s running way too perfectly to be hurt. If he was bleeding, even he’d be slowed down by it. Marco’s not Superman, he can still get hurt and he can still be slowed down by an injury. If he’s still running, then he’s fine. “Jean, come on! You can’t slow down!” Yeah, he’s fine. His fit body is handling the run a lot better than mine. Shit, I wish I was still as in good a shape as I was before this mess started.

“J-Just worry about yourself, Bodt.” I sound so weak, wheezing out the words as I try to keep up with him, not confident at all like I want to sound. Space is growing between the two of us. I try to push myself more, thinking to the zombie that has to be on our tail. I’m so tempted to just throw the pack in hopes that it’ll slow it down or lighten my weight but I can’t just throw it. It has the blankets and my gun and bullets. I’ll just have to push myself. Harder than any other moment in my life.

“Here.” I tight grip wraps around my wrist. Marco clings to my arm and forces me to keep up with him. It’s a good and a bad thing. I can barely keep up with him but at least I’m not falling behind. His hold is tight, almost painful, but I know I have to suck it up. A little bruise is a small price to pay when my whole life is at stake right now. Even as my lungs ache and my throat burns, I push through it and ignore the way my heart feels like it’s about to give. I look to Marco and he’s looking right back at me. “I won’t let you get hurt.” He says it so quietly with little difficulty despite our running, “I won’t, Jean. I promised to keep you safe.”

Marco, why won’t you let _me_ keep _you_ safe?

Marco suddenly looks over his shoulder and this look of fear comes over his face for just a second, a look so terrified that it’s completely odd to see on his face, before it hardens into something else. Something I really can’t quiet read. The sudden snarl behind us tells me that I don’t have time to think about Marco’s expression, terror welling up inside my stomach and into my chest. _‘It’s caught up to us...’_ I’m panicking already, blood rushing like rapids and pulse pounding in my ears. Fuck, it’s going to eat us. It’s going to bite me, it’s going to eat us, _it’s going to fucking eat me_.

“Jean, look out!”

I’m shoved forward by a hand pressed to the center of my back and my feet nearly tangle beneath me. I just barely avoid falling over when I hear the snarl and a pained cry that makes my heart almost stop. My legs, however, come to a halt entirely, “Marco!” I turn around and see Marco pinned on his back and hands gripping the shoulders of the decaying creature on top of him. “Marco!” Fucking shit, what did I do with my pipe!? When did I lose- I almost cry as I realize that I left it behind when I first started running. I didn’t fucking _take_ it with me. Marco’s bat is laying just out of his reach, though. If I can just move fast enough I can-

“Just go!!”

I freeze up like a deer in headlights, staring at Marco in shock as he keeps struggling to keep space between his face and the snapping teeth above him. Did he just tell me to go? How could he…?

“ **Go** , dammit!!”

How can I _just go_ when my partner…my best friend is-?

“ **Jean, please!** ”

My body doesn’t want to move. I can’t make any of my muscles move. I can’t…look away from him. Marco. Marco, please.

Please don’t make me leave you.

_‘Jean! Please- Help me, Jean!!’_

Hitch…

When did my legs start to move on their own? Why? _Why_ are they moving away from Marco? I can’t just abandon him! He saved my life and I can’t even save his?! How can I be that selfish!? How…? How can I be that…weak?

I can’t look back. I don’t _want_ to look back! I can’t stand seeing someone else dead, torn open and screaming for help. I don’t want to see Hitch again. I don’t…want to see Marco like that. Marco… “I’m so sorry.” My throat hurts, the words feeling like sharp razors. Why couldn’t I save you? Why did I have to leave you? Why do those _things_ have more control over me than I have over myself?

Why did you let me stay with you when we both knew I was just dead weight?

I’m so sorry. I should have never stayed with you, Marco.

I let you die.

* * *

 

My hurt so much. It feels like there’s stones weighing them down. How far have I gone? The sun set hours ago but I can’t…I can’t see Ragako. It’s just trees. Trees, trees, more goddamn trees. Marco, you said the highway would go straight to Ragako but all it did was lead straight into this mess of trees. The road was gone but there wasn’t a town in sight.

Marco…I’m scared.

It’s pitch black, the trees keeping any light from coming in. I don’t know where I’m going anymore or whether I’m even going in a straight line. I can hear the leaves crunching under my feet and rocks rolling under my weight. I’ve probably fallen over ten times already. Each slip makes my ankles ache, nearly twisting them whenever I step on a loose stone or patch of dirt. I’m tired and filthy. My stomach started aching an hour ago but Marco, you have the bag with our food.

I know I told myself that being alone would be best for me, but Marco, I don’t think I can do this… I don’t think I can survive like this on my own. I’m not strong enough, Marco. I’m not strong enough to fight these things. Not without you.

I suddenly go face first into the ground, pain shooting through my ankle as the dirt gives out under me and I fall forward. My face hurts, but I don’t want to even bother getting back up. I close my hands around the dry leaves, feeling them being crushed in my grip, the rough texture digging into my palms. I feel the hot tears pour from my eyes and a broken sob come out of my throat. “Marco…Marco…” I want Marco back. I can’t do this by myself. I just want him back, I don’t care how fucking pathetic I look. “Please…Please come back, Marco.” I need you.

There’s a rustling near me and I immediately stiffen up, mouth shutting on instinct, and my hand quickly slapping itself over my mouth. I don’t think about the scraps of dead leaves and dirt against my lips, instead shaking as the rustling grows louder. _‘No, no, no, no! Please no!’_ I can’t face one of those things now. I can’t see and I don’t have anything to protect myself with anymore. What do I do? _What do I do?_ I don’t know what to do. Marco…Marco, please help me! The leaves crunch under the weight of someone’s steps, just feet away from me. This is it. I’m dead. I’m dead, I’m dead, _I’m dead_. They’re going to tear me apart just like they did to Hitch and mom and Marco!

“If you’re human, say so now before I bust your skull open!”

My heart almost stops in my chest. That doesn’t sound anything like the hungry monsters out there. It…It’s human. It’s a human that’s in front of me. My pulse pounds in my ears and I can’t bring myself to move. It’s really another person…

“I’m giving you one more chance. Answer me if you’re human!”

I move slowly, maybe a little too slowly because I suddenly hear the person in front of me quickly step back with a startled gasp. I instinctively bring my hands up, as if expecting to be hit, and I look up through my raised hands at the person who has something held over their heads, ready to strike me in the head. Fuck-!

“Sasha wait! He’s fine!” The second voice startles me just as much as the first, and I quickly look to where it came from. It’s dark, and I can only faintly see their figure moving around and coming toward my location. They rush over, their steps making the leaves and sticks crunch loudly in the dark. “Sasha, relax, babe.” My hands are still held up defensively but I can see these two people standing close together before me. The one who was ready to smack me down – Sasha, the guy said – slowly lowers her weapon that I still can’t make out, and I let out a small breath of relief. I’m not out of danger yet, though. These two can easily take me out if they wanted to.

Light suddenly hits me in the eyes, “Agh- Fuck!” I practically slap my dirt covered hands over my eyes, seeing spots behind my lids. Jesus, that’s bright as fuck. These assholes have the brightest fucking light I’ve seen in months.

“What’s your name?” I try to look at Sasha again but the light only hits my eyes again, making me turn away to save my retinas from total disaster.

“J-Jean. Jean Kirschstein. I’m coming from Karanese and looking for Ragako.”

“Ragako?” I make a sound of confirmation and try to see through the bright light in front of me, “…You’re close to it. We’ve actually been hiding out there.” Thankfully, Sasha finally takes the light away from my face and I can blink a few times to try and clear my vision, though it doesn’t really do much. “What’s in your bag?”

“Huh?” I’m confused until I remember my backpack. It’s still attached to me. The weight has become so normal that I completely forgot about it. “Just…Just some blankets.” And my gun, but the last thing I want to put any focus on is that.

“No food?” I shake my head at the guy’s clearly disappointed question. I don’t have any food. Marco had all of it. He didn’t want me to be weighed down even more than normal. He didn’t want me to drag us down by walking slower from the weight. Funny, because I still ended up screwing him over. I still…let him down. “Jean?”

Marco. I’m sorry I let you down. I’m sorry for everything. “I’m sorry…”

“H-Hey, relax. It’s no big deal, okay? Sasha and I have enough for the three of us, we can split with you.” I shake my head because he doesn’t understand. No one understands…

“It’s not about the food…” My voice breaks and I bite my lip to hold back a pathetic sound as Marco flashes in my mind, “It’s…Marco.” My chest aches as his name leaves my mouth, like my chest is being crushed from the weight of my guilt.

“Who?” Of course they don’t know. They don’t know who he was.

“Marco. My…” My what? My partner? I hardly ever pulled my own weight. I never defended him, I never fought back. My friend? What kind of friend runs away while someone is being torn to shreds? My lover? We were never in love. We were just numbing the pain. We were keeping ourselves from losing our minds. All we did was give each other the affection we thought we needed. So what was I to Marco? What was he to me? “He was my…” A hand lands on my shoulder and I follow the arm up until I see a face in the darkness, barely able to tell that it’s the girl, Sasha. She gives me a reassuring smile and a squeeze to my shoulder, as if saying I don’t need to explain. I don’t think I could explain anyway.

“Come on, Jean. Ragako’s this way.” Both Sasha and her boyfriend – at least that’s what I assume he is – help me up and hold both of my hands in theirs. Like always, I have to be supported. I have to have my weight carried around. I don’t want that anymore. I slide my hands away from them, insisting I walk on my own. I don’t want anyone to carry me again just so they can end up like Marco.

 

Ragako isn’t anything special. A run down little town that can probably be walked through in just a couple of hours. And just like Karanese, it’s in ruins. Nothing but broken homes and empty cars everywhere, and I can already tell that this place is mostly cleaned out. I wonder, is there any place that still has anything to offer? Food? Water? Protection? Or has everything been destroyed by those things?  I’m starting to wonder if the plan Marco and I had set up for ourselves would have even been a waste of time. How could we make it to the coast with resources slowly disappearing every day? We wouldn’t have been able to make our food last for more than a couple of weeks, even if we rationed it all out. I doubt that the coast is even possible now that I’m on my own. I doubt Sasha and her boyfriend will want me around for long.

I follow these two people until they come up to a house with broken windows and scratched walls. To call it a safe house would be an exaggeration. Nothing about it looks safe. To me, it looks like a place where you’d go in just to die, with hardly any protection to it. Everything in my gut is saying that I should just pull away and go off on my own but my entire body and my exhausted mind is screaming for any place to sleep. My muscles ache and I’m so tired, I just want to lay down and sleep for days and wake up to a normal world with a normal life and in someone’s warm arms. I want to hear the steady heart beat against my ear and feel scars under my fingertips, scars that hold so many secrets that I might never know. I want to be able to hear about a town called Jinae in a voice that no longer drips with fear and hesitation. I just want Marco...

“It isn’t much, but it’s somewhere safe. We’ve been here since yesterday and haven’t had a run in yet.” I hear Sasha’s voice in the darkness, our footsteps being the only thing that make noise in their little shell of a shack. “Hey Connie, how about we light the fireplace for a bit, at least until we can get Jean settled in.” Connie. That must be the other guy’s name. He doesn’t answer, but I can hear someone stepping further away. I just stand by the closed door, not sure where to step in the dark. My pack is still weighing me down but I don’t plan on putting it down until I can see where I’m standing. “Here Jean.” Something brushes against my hand and I flinch back against the door with a slight thud. “Relax. It’s just my hand.” Sasha grabs my hand slowly, like she’s handling something that could make her lose a finger or a limb, cautious and slow. I guess with how jumpy I’ve been, I can’t really blame her for being careful around me. I’m not a trigger happy sort, though. I wouldn’t be able to really fight anything off right now. I’d go belly up in an instant as soon as something tried to take me down.

Sasha leads me through the dark until I can feel her push against my shoulders. She tells me to sit and I do so with hesitation. I can’t feel a chair right away but then I realize that I’m probably expected to settle on the floor. I try not to fall over like a klutz and as soon as I’m safely on the floor, I let myself shed the backpack. I can hear paper being torn up and crumpled, a sound that I’m only just now realizing has been going on for a while. “You guys have matches?” Connie answers by rattling something; probably matches. I decide to just listen to him try and light the thing up. It takes him a few tries but he manages. Eventually.

“Geeze, how many matches did that take you? Five?” As soon as the fire is going, I take a crack at ribbing my so-called saviors. I could either get a laugh in response or a kick in the pants. Connie’s embarrassed frown and Sasha’s light laughter relieves me of the worry of being kicked out after ten minutes of arriving. Well, I guess I got off on the right foot for once. Satisfied, I grab my pack that’s still behind me, now with the fire giving me some light, and I start pulling what little supplies I have, “Here. You guys saved my ass so I guess I should share what I got. Not much though…” I pull everything out one by one. Just the blanket from the farm, some of the raggedy scraps Marco had that kept us covered at night, I pull it all out, stopping only when I realize something is missing. “…Damn.” I huff with disappoint when I realize that the comforter Marco had isn’t in here, “He must have kept it in his bag with the food…” Only Marco would make that little mistake. No good to think about it now though…

“You have a gun?”

Connie’s surprised tone has me sitting up straighter and I follow his and Sasha’s slightly concerned stares. My gun is set out with all the blankets, along with the little cardboard box I used to carry the bullets. I still haven’t touched it and part of me wishes I had kept it within my reach back in the field. Dammit, if I had kept it on me instead of in the bag, I could have saved Marco. I could have taken that stupid monster out myself. I could have even let _Marco_ carry it, but no. No, I had to put it in my bag. I had to be the idiot who put it there.

I fight off my guilt and instead force myself to nod, “Yeah.” I forgot, I didn’t tell them I had a gun, out of fear that they would react negatively. Judging from their faces, they aren’t too relieved to see me with one. “Don’t worry. I don’t plan on using it. At least not unless I have to.” I’ll use it next time someone needs to be saved. I won’t let myself be the cause of someone else’s death. Even if it means using the bullet I saved just for myself. “I have limited bullets, though, so nobody can use the gun unless it’s absolutely necessary.” And with that, I take the gun and bullets and drop them back in my bag. No use talking about it anyway.

The three of us sit in silence, watching the fire and probably lost in our thoughts. I know I am. Thinking about what I’m going to do now. No food, no water, and only a handful of bullets to keep me alive. I could go back to Karanese, but there’s nothing left. And the idea of going back just to see if I can find Marco’s pack…I’d rather not risk going back to find his pack after I abandoned him. Plus, what if his body is still there? Half devoured, alone where I left him. I can’t go through that. I can’t.

“Jean. Here.” Sasha pulls me from my thoughts and I blink a few times before turning to her. A bag of chips is held out to me, and I hold back a grimace at the label of ‘BBQ Flavored’. I give Sasha a look that says ‘Are you serious?’ to which she responds with a shrug, “Hey, it’s better than going hungry. Careful, they might be tasting a little stale.” Great. Stale chips. She waves them around a little longer and before she can pull them away, I snatch them up, tearing the bag open without looking away from Sasha’s smile. A pop a chip into my mouth and try to not think about the slight stale taste and the BBQ flavor. I never liked this flavor. A girl in school did, though. So did her boyfriend. Neither of them looked anything like BBQ lovers, the girl too serious and the guy too awkward. What an odd thing to think, but as I taste the flavor, I can’t help but think off things like that. Actually, Marco once said he liked BBQ flavor too. And he laughed when I gagged at the mention of it.

A eat another chip, hearing Marco’s laughter in the back of my mind as I bite back another frown, this one based less around the flavor in my mouth, and more on the guilt in my chest. Bastard keeps laughing at me, even from the grave.

And if I cry a little that night when I wrap myself up in one of Marco’s blankets with Sasha and Connie nestled behind me to share warmth, I don’t say anything. I only hide my tears and pretend I’m still in his arms while he whispers for me to just let go and sleep.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohhh, darn, Marco why'd u go and do that? 
> 
> Sorry for that long wait, school has been kicking my ass and I actually have little time or motivation to write or even draw anymore (which is upsetting to me because those are my two real passions, whoops).  
> Anyway, I am sorry for that short chapter too. (It feels hella short for me, actually, I wanted it to breach 10k but I barely came up under 7k.) Let us hope that future chapters will have more length. 
> 
> I have a [tumblr](http://vanitas-vanilla.tumblr.com/) (with autoplay, beware), and [twitter](https://twitter.com/VanthePapaya).

**Author's Note:**

> So I did it. Started the Zombie AU I drew up on Tumblr. 
> 
> This has been something I've had marinating a long time, so here's hoping it comes out nicely for you people.
> 
> You can also check out [Who Drowned Marco Bodt?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5196437/chapters/11974826), my other chapter fic.


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